While Virginia Democrat governor nominee Abigail Spanberger is campaigning on a platform of making life in the Old Dominion more affordable, her voting record suggests she’d do the opposite, critics claim.
“Virginians are feeling squeezed by high prices,” Spanberger said in response to a September inflation report. “As the next governor of Virginia, I will be laser-focused on bringing costs down for families.”
“Abigail Spanberger is running from her record,” Peyton Vogel, press secretary for Spanberger’s opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “She voted for the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that raised prices for every Virginian, she backed Biden’s failed liberal agenda that drove up housing prices, and stood shoulder to shoulder with the most liberal wing of her party.”
“Winsome Earle-Sears has spent her career working for Virginians by cutting burdensome regulations, lowering taxes, and saving families money,” Vogel added. “Winsome’s plan means more money in your pocket. Abigail wants to bleed it dry. Don’t let her tell you otherwise.”
Spanberger’s affordability messaging echoes the Republican campaigns of 2022 and 2024, when GOP candidates condemned President Joe Biden and the Democrats for the inflation that followed the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet the message that worked for Republicans may not persuade voters to support a Democrat who voted for the spending that arguably spurred record inflation in the Biden years.
Spanberger’s ‘Affordable Virginia’ Plan
In June, the Democrat launched an “Affordable Virginia” plan, suggesting President Donald Trump is contributing to inflation. Spanberger attacked Trump’s tariffs, the Medicaid reforms and tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the reduction in the federal workforce.
Spanberger calls for cutting red tape to spur new housing, price controls on health care, increasing child care subsidies, and energy policy.
While Republicans like Earle-Sears support increasing the supply of energy in order to drive down costs, Spanberger’s plan seems focused on decreasing the demand. Her policy calls for ensuring Virginians are “making use of the resources currently available to them to lower their energy bills,” such as deciding to use less electricity for heating and cooling.
The Democrat also mentions a return to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an inter-state agreement that charges power plants for emissions and uses the money to prop up renewable energy. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, attempted to exit the initiative, calling it a “hidden tax” on electricity. Virginia’s withdrawal remains in limbo after judge blocked it.
While some of her policies may decrease some costs, critics say her own voting record muddies the waters.
COVID-19 Spending
“Spanberger voted for trillions in unnecessary COVID spending that has driven up inflation and made everything from groceries to buying a vehicle more expensive,” Stephanie Kreuz, director of sentinel strategy at Heritage Action, told The Daily Signal. Heritage Action is supporting Republicans running for the Virginia Legislature.
Richard Stern, director of The Heritage Foundation’s economic policy arm, told The Daily Signal that Spanberger’s “record during COVID-19 was to vote for disastrous shutdowns and inflationary spending programs that raised prices over 20%—an increase in the cost of living of a family of four by over $20,000 annually.”
Stern added that “while her call for some permitting reform is a good start, her overall economic approach would largely repeat these big government mistakes of the Biden COVID era and would impose yet more crushing economic burdens on Virginia.”
Spanberger voted for trillions in spending during the COVID-19 pandemic and in its aftermath, a massive spending surge that arguably triggered the inflation of the Biden years.
She supported the $1.9 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act in March 2020 (it passed by voice vote so there is no record of her vote); a supplemental funding package with $900 billion in COVID-19 spending in December 2020; and the $2.1 trillion American Rescue Plan Act in February 2021. These COVID-era bills cost nearly $5 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Critics have claimed only a small fraction of the funds went to health care.
She also voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden later celebrated as “the largest climate investment in history.” While Democrats at the time said the bill would pay down the deficit and combat inflation, a Cato Institute study estimated that the bill will cost between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over the next ten years.
Spanberger also voted for the November 2021 infrastructure law, which authorized more than $500 billion of direct spending and tax breaks.
Critics also fault green energy spending for increasing inflation.
“These green energy policies are masqueraded in the guise of averting climate change but in reality, they do nothing but cater to special interests while only making life more expensive and less convenient for ordinary Americans and offering only limited impact on the climate,” Kevin Dayaratna, director of Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis, told The Daily Signal.
“If the United States were to completely avert CO2 emissions there would be less than 0.23 degrees Celsius impact on the climate,” he noted. “Candidate Spanberger’s proposed policies would have an impact of a mere fraction of this fraction.”
The Spanberger campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
