When Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race last November, Democrats couldn’t stop talking about her.
A pragmatic moderate. A winner in purple terrain. Someone who proved you didn’t have to go full-progressive to beat Republicans in a competitive state. They loved her so much they gave her the honor of delivering the Democratic response to the State of the Union. She was supposed to be the blueprint for how the party rebuilt itself.
That was five months ago. Now she’s making history — just not the kind her party had in mind.
Two polls this week show Spanberger has the lowest approval rating of any Virginia governor in recent history at this early point in their term. She won with 57% of the vote in November. Her approval has already dropped 10 points.
Here’s what local DC news was reporting this afternoon:
Forty-seven approve, forty-seven disapprove. For a governor who crushed her opponent by 15 points just five months ago, that is a remarkable collapse. And it’s not one poll going rogue.
A second poll, from State Navigate, confirmed the same finding today:
“Most historically unpopular Governor at this point in the most recent Virginia Governors’ terms.” That includes Republicans and Democrats alike. In a state that’s had some polarizing governors over the years, she’s managed to land at the bottom of the approval list faster than any of them.
Fox News laid out exactly how the floor fell out so fast:
Governor Abigail Spanberger has the highest disapproval rating among Virginia governors since 1994 at this point in their term, with 46 percent disapproving — compared to her predecessor Glenn Youngkin, who had a 54-39 approval rating at the same stage.
Steve Moore, economist at Unleash Prosperity, stated she “raced out of the gate with all these very liberal policies” and experienced “one of the swiftest declines in popularity in the first six months” he has witnessed. Republicans ran ads tying her to proposed taxes on dry cleaning, gym memberships, and pet care.
Spanberger’s office pushed back, noting the contested tax bills were never actually passed by the General Assembly and never reached her desk — but the political damage was already done.
Republicans framed her narrative before she could frame it herself. She never actually signed those tax increases. But the ads ran, the story stuck, and now her numbers look like this. Voters made up their minds fast.
ABC affiliate WSET put the numbers in context:
Governor Spanberger’s approval rating stands at 47 percent two months into her term, according to a Washington Post and Schar School at George Mason University poll — making her the least popular Virginia governor at this stage since polling began in the early 1990s.
At the same point in his term, former Governor Glenn Youngkin had a 54 percent approval rating. Democrat Ralph Northam stood at 48 percent and Terry McAuliffe at 52 percent. Spanberger trails all of them.
ABC13 Political Analyst Dr. David Richards noted: “The Republicans have done a good job of sort of setting her up as somebody who’s going to do some radical things.”
She won Virginia by 15 points and is now below water on approval after five months. The Democrat that was supposed to show the party how to win is already the party’s cautionary tale.
Two polls, same story. The redistricting gamble may end up defining her entire first term — and not in the way her party hoped.
