Opinion | Why Abigail Spanberger feels confident she can win reelection

“You gotta get something done,” Spanberger says. And that’s why she is so enthusiastic about Democrats’ recent string of legislative wins. While no bill is perfect, she says, “we’re moving forward. Success begets success.”

Spanberger’s seat is a true swing district. She won in 2018 and 2020 with less than 51 percent of the vote. Her constituents voted for Donald Trump by six points in 2016 and for Joe Biden by one point in 2020. To make matters more dicey, the district’s borders have changed considerably thanks to redistricting, meaning Spanberger must introduce herself to a whole patch of new voters. (She lost some Richmond suburbs and picked up areas west to the Shenandoah and more of the outer D.C. suburbs.) Though some of her constituents were part of the old 7th District, hundreds of thousands were not.

Still, she has plenty to show constituents after this summer. For a district that includes Marine Corps Base Quantico and is home to many veterans, the recently passed legislation that will expand access to health care for sick veterans exposed to burn pits in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is certainly welcome. Democrats in the U.S. House “didn’t compromise” on the bill, she says. “We demanded the Senate be as responsive as we were.” After humiliating themselves with an unnecessary delay, Senate Republicans finally helped pass the bill 86-11.

What’s more, Spanberger says her district has “so many retirees on a fixed income” who will save hundreds if not thousands of dollars thanks to the reconciliation package the Senate recently passed, which includes a $2,000 cap on Medicare drug costs, a cap on insulin prices for those on Medicare and reforms to allow the government to negotiate prices with drug companies.

Even the package’s increased funding for the Internal Revenue Service gets a thumbs-up. “People who are having problems with the IRS want it to be able to function,” she says.

Meanwhile, abortion was not on the radar for many voters until the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights in June. “Suddenly, it’s in the forefront,” Spanberger says. The notion that they might not be able to get post-miscarriage care is a “jarring reality” for many voters. Even those who might not be directly affected express unease that “things are going backwards.”

The abortion issue looms particularly large in her district, since her Republican challenger, Yesli Vega, cheered the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Vega was recently caught on tape sounding a lot like failed Missouri’s failed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin, who argued women couldn’t get pregnant from rape. In the recording, after someone made a similar claim, Vega responded, “Maybe, because there’s so much going on in the body? I don’t know. . . . But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me, because it’s not something that’s happening organically. You’re forcing it.”

Spanberger slammed Vega for the remark, which Spanberger says has “no reality in fact or biology.” She added that Vega is “incredibly extreme” and wants “more government control and more government intrusion.”

Nevertheless, Spanberger faces a tough political environment in which inflation remains a top issue. She acknowledges voters’ pain and the cycle of “bad news after bad news” causing so much angst. She concedes that some people want to blame it all on President Biden and expect an instant solution. But, she says, “people recognize things are complicated.” And they want to know what she’s doing to solve the problems.

Spanberger is betting voters are much less ideological and more results-oriented than the partisan media and politicians. If so, she could not ask for a better contrast from her opponent. As a moderate Democrat running against a radical MAGA candidate, Spanberger argues that voters want legislators who appreciate “nuance,” can get things done and are not driven by partisanship.

Thanks to the run of legislative successes, Spanberger and other Democrats in tough races can at least show voters what they are doing to improve voters’ lives (e.g., lowering drug costs, building infrastructure, taking care of veterans, giving residents help to convert to clean energy). That will be critical in November as Democrats present voters with a choice between out-of-step MAGA candidates and pragmatic Democrats who have delivered for them.