Spanberger attempts to flip 7th District blue for the first time in a half century

The day after her first and only debate with Rep. Dave Brat, Democratic congressional candidate Abigail Spanberger stood in the dining room of a Chesterfield home for her campaign’s 135th Meet and Greet. After a speech met with resounding applause, the room opened to questions, with one woman in the corner eventually speaking up.

“I believe in so much of what you say but then some things I can’t agree to, like abortion, for example. … What is your stance where you can meet in the middle, listen to people like me, Latinos, who believe in so much of what you’re saying but just can’t take it that far to abortion?”

“I think it’s all about choices,” Spanberger said. “It’s all about choices.”

The choices are distinct in the 7th Congressional District, which spans across much of Henrico as well Chesterfield, Orange, Culpeper, Goochland and several other central Virginian counties. There’s the incumbent Republican Brat, who rode into office in 2014 with the surprising defeat of former majority leader Eric Cantor and is now a member of the House’s conservative Freedom Caucus.

On the other hand, there’s Spanberger, a former CIA officer running her first political campaign fueled by the same energy driving Democrats around the country.

Her existence as a visible and competitive candidate is an anomaly in the district’s history, given that it has consistently voted Republican for the last 47 years. Although the district was redrawn for the 2016 elections, several indicators show that the district still leans red. Brat won his reelection with 57.7 percent of the vote in 2016, and the majority of the district voted for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie in 2017 and President Donald Trump in 2016. And with Brat having the political connections as an incumbent and the initial fundraising advantage, he would normally be a shoe-in for the seat.

But the typical expectations are now being challenged in the era of what the media has dubbed “the blue wave.” The Cook Political Report now rates the race as a toss-up, and Spanberger has outraised Brat by more than $3 million.

The question is if Spanberger, with her CIA background and moderate political stance, can ride that wave successfully with her supporters.

Path to candidacy
Spanberger had been considering running for office by the time President Donald Trump won election. But it wasn’t until the day the American Health Care Act came before Congress that she felt truly pushed to run, she said. Her friends have a daughter with a degenerative neurological disorder and posted on Facebook their fears that they would face bankruptcy with the passage of the bill. She decided then that she was committed to running for office.

“I realized the only reason I wasn’t doing it was because, to some degree I was afraid of it,” Spanberger said last October. “It’s a tremendous endeavor, a tremendous life change, even just campaigning, regardless of what happens next November.

“And I realized that level of certainty I had about taking this challenge meant nothing compared to people who were looking at losing their existing health coverage after they fought cancer.”

Spanberger had a unique career path leading up to her candidacy. She was born in New Jersey and her family moved every couple of years before settling in the Short Pump area when Spanberger was about 13 years old. Her dad was an agent with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a fact she cites often on the campaign trail as an inspiration for her service in the federal government.

“When I was a kid, I used to read all the little kids spy novels,” she said. “I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew I wanted to work for the government and do spy stuff.”

She studied many languages throughout her life, with proficiency in Spanish, French, German and some Italian. After graduating from University of Virginia, she went to Germany to get a master’s in business administration.

She planned to stay abroad until the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which motivated her to go back to the U.S. and work for the federal government. She spent time in the U.S. Postal Inspection while waiting for her application to the CIA to go through, working cases on narcotics, money laundering and anthrax. She ended up getting her start date for the CIA a month after her wedding in 2006.

Her work in the CIA landed their family in different places across America and the world. But while on the west coast in 2014, she and her husband, Adam, decided they should settle down somewhere. Both she and her husband grew up in Henrico, so they moved back to live closer to family, with Spanberger quitting the CIA to work in the private sector.

No longer bound by the Hatch Act, which limits the political activity of federal employees, Spanberger and her husband began to get more involved in local politics, meeting local candidates and organizers, about mid-way through the last presidential election, her husband said.

“Through meeting those types of people, a lot of people expressed interest in Abigail’s background and her passion,” her husband said, “and said ‘you’d be a great candidate, you’d be a great legislator. You should consider running for something.’”

After Trump’s victory, Spanberger participated in Emerge, a seven-month-long training program for women interested in running for office. She and her husband attended Brat’s town halls — a fact Brat included in an ad — at which they spoke with attendees. Spanberger fielded advice from connections in Washington as well as family and friends, including one close Republican friend.

“His response back was so incredible,” she said. “And then he proceeded to introduce me to all these people saying like, ‘I promise, I’m a Republican and I want to support her.’”

Monique Alcala, the acting chair of The Democratic Latino Organization of Virginia, had heard of Spanberger before she had announced her run and was impressed by her when they first spoke on the phone last year.

“It’s very easy to identify people who just want to run for office for the sake of running for office, but with Abigail it’s different,” Alcala said. “It’s very clear she’s community-oriented, cares about the issues and she’s going to be legislating that way.”

Her supporters tout respect for her background in federal service and support for certain policy issues.

“We have a lot of likenesses,” Del. Hala Ayala said. “One, being women running for office, she’s a national security specialist and I’m a cybersecurity person elected to the House of Delegates. And I think it’s important, especially in this time, watching our president rub elbows with Putin on national stages. ”

“She’s done her homework,” said Camille Harris, who doesn’t live in Brat’s district but attended a healthcare panel hosted by her campaign. “She’s not just up there giving out one-liners and trying to gloss over it and trying to deflect and say, ‘Hey, do you want your individual rights taken away?’”

On the campaign trail, Spanberger consistently notes her ability to work across the aisle, saying in one ad that she would work with the president “when it’s good for Virginia.” She does not support some policies embraced by progressives such as abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement or establishing a single-payer healthcare system, though Brat portrays her as a supporter of sanctuary cities and a $32 trillion tax increase for healthcare, Spanberger rarely talks about Trump directly.

“Certainly the president is who the president is, but I’m running against Dave Brat, so that’s who I choose to talk about,” she said. “Notably unlike Dave Brat, who seems to be running against Nancy Pelosi.”

The attacks in the competitive race drew national attention when the Postal Service improperly released Spanberger’s security clearance application to a conservative super PAC, which went on to attack her for her year-long employment as a substitute teacher at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia.

“The types of attacks he’s lobbed against me have been particularly disappointing and it sounds ridiculous,” Spanberger said. “So I just remain focused. Anytime he does something that I find unacceptable or just inexcusable, it makes me all the more motivated to win.”

When asked about her plans if she loses the election, Spanberger laughed.

“I’m gonna be looking for a job,” she said. “And ideally taking up a yoga hobby.”