In Virginia and New Jersey governor's races, Democrats reprise a 2018
roadmap for opposing Trump 2.0
[June 19, 2025]
By BILL BARROW, OLIVIA DIAZ and MIKE CATALINI
HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (AP) — Abigail Spanberger opened her general
election bid for Virginia governor Wednesday using her high school alma
mater near Richmond.
“I grew up walking the halls of Tucker High School,” the former
congresswoman says as she walks past a bank of lockers in her first ad
since securing the Democratic nomination. Later, she notes her
experience as a CIA case officer, then in the halls of Congress as a
tough-minded, get-things-done lawmaker.
The same kind of message is echoing in New Jersey from Rep. Mikie
Sherrill, as she also makes a bid for governor. Both women are selling
themselves as Democrats who can rise above the rancor of Donald Trump’s
Washington.
For national Democrats who have spent months debating how to counter the
president’s aggressive second administration, it’s a reminder of what
worked for the party during Trump’s first term. Spanberger and Sherrill
were headliners in the 2018 roster of center-left Democrats who helped
flip House control from Republicans with balanced appeals to moderates,
progressives and even anti-Trump conservatives. Now, they're leading
statewide tickets in races that could offer Democrats a
back-to-the-future path forward as they look toward next year's
midterms.
“There are a lot of similarities” in Democrats’ current position and the
2018 campaigns, said Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., who, as a House member,
chaired his party’s congressional campaign arm during Trump’s first
midterm election cycle.
The 2018 Democratic freshman class yielded a net gain of 40 seats with a
lineup that featured record numbers of women and plenty of candidates
with national security and business backgrounds. A similar effort
yielded a net gain of six governors.
The party's 2018 winners also included outspoken progressives like Reps.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota,
elected in more liberal, urban districts. But the balance of power
shifted on the backs of centrist candidates who carried the nation’s
suburbs and improved Democrats’ performance in exurbs and even
small-town, GOP-dominated areas.
Among Spanberger’s and Sherrill’s freshman colleagues were Elissa
Slotkin of Michigan, another former CIA analyst, who won a suburban
Detroit seat before her elevation to the Senate last November; Rep.
Jason Crow, a former Army officer, who represents suburban Denver; and
Rep. Angie Craig, who flipped a GOP-held seat in greater Minneapolis and
now is running for Senate. Crow is now co-chairman of candidate
recruitment for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Similar resumes are popping up among new Democratic recruits. In
Michigan, for example, Bridget Brink, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,
announced her bid for Slotkin's old 7th Congressional District on
Wednesday by leaning into her international experience as a counter to
Trump.
Luján said the common thread has been recruiting “real people, regular
folks” with “incredible credentials” and an ability to hold “a real
conversation with people around economic issues … around the kitchen
table” and campaign in any area.
So even as New Jersey’s Sherrill calls her Republican rival Jack
Ciattarelli a “Trump lackey” and Spanberger pledges in a fundraising
email to “defeat Trump’s agenda at the ballot box,” their wider appeal
depends on different arguments.
Sherrill has from the start touted her biography: a Naval Academy
graduate, Navy Sea King helicopter pilot, federal prosecutor and mother
of four. Her blue and gold yard signs have a chopper hovering above her
name. She is also promising an “Affordability Agenda” to address voters'
economic concerns.
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Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger addresses a
crowd at a rally at her alma mater, J.R. Tucker High School, in
Henrico, Va., Monday, June 16, 2025. (Mike Kropf /Richmond
Times-Dispatch via AP)
Spanberger, part of the Problem Solvers Caucus when she was on
Capitol Hill, leans into her deal-making centrism, promises to
confront economic gaps and has pledged to campaign in every Virginia
congressional district, including where Trump has dominated.
“It’s not the job of the governor of Virginia to cater to President
Trump,” Spanberger said in one of her final primary campaign
speeches. “It’s not the job of the governor of Virginia to cater to
a political party.”
In an Associated Press interview earlier this spring, Spanberger
even criticized former President Joe Biden for “posturing” by
promising to eliminate student debt — something he could not
accomplish by presidential action alone. “Don’t make promises you
can’t keep,” she said.
She also bristled when asked to describe her place on the political
spectrum. She instead said she set goals by asking, “How do I impact
the most people in the fastest way possible?”
Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist who worked as a senior
staffer for the Democratic Governors Association during the 2018
cycle, said it’s notable that Spanberger and Sherrill avoid getting
mired in the internal party tussle among progressives, liberals and
moderates.
“Most voters aren’t really thinking about things along a simple
left-right political spectrum,” especially in statewide races,
Leopold said. “People are looking for politicians who they think
understand them and can get things done to help them.”
He pointed to another 2018 Democratic standout: Michigan Gov.
Gretchen Whitmer. Now a potential 2028 presidential candidate,
Whitmer first gained national attention as a state legislator who
spoke out about abortion rights and her experience of being raped as
a college student. But she became a juggernaut in the governor’s
race with what Leopold called a “brilliant and simple” slogan: “Fix
the damn roads!”
Of course, Democrats do not dispute that a candidate’s military and
national security experiences help neutralize routine Republican
attacks of all Democrats as too liberal or out of touch.
“These credentials for how they’ve served the country — they’re just
sharing who they are,” Luján said.
Said Leopold: “It certainly gives a different definition of what the
Democratic Party is to some voters.”
In Virginia, Republican nominee and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears,
who like Spanberger would become the first woman to serve in the
state’s top elected office, is trying to tie the Democratic nominee
to her national party.
Earle-Sears’ social media accounts frequently share pictures of
Spanberger and Biden hugging and wearing masks. She accuses
Spanberger of effectively rubber-stamping Biden’s legislative agenda
while in Congress.
“Part of the challenge,” Spanberger retorts, “is that either my
opponent or people who might be running anywhere, who don’t
necessarily have things to run on, are going to try and distract.”
Spanberger, Sherrill and Democrats like them hope that most voters
assess the GOP attacks and their own branding efforts like Fred
Martucci, a retired glazier who voted early in Trenton, New Jersey.
The 75-year-old expressed a visceral distaste for Trump. As for what
impresses him about Sherrill, he said: “She was a Navy helicopter
pilot. You can’t be a dummy — she’s sharp.”
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