DOGE and the shutdown, redistricting and more : NPR

Several late-breaking surprises have shaken up what political watchers thought would be a quiet race in Virginia.

The commonwealth’s gubernatorial race — one of just two held the year after presidential elections — is often seen as a temperature check on how voters feel about leaders in Washington.

Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee and former congresswoman, has maintained a lead in polls since very early in the race over Republican nominee Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

But this year, while voters’ top concerns are energy prices, housing affordability and jobs, the rest of the race has become a referendum on everything from political violence to redistricting.

Here, public media journalists across Virginia take us into each issue.

DOGE and the federal government shutdown

The challenges facing Virginia’s 320,000 federal workers and hundreds of thousands of federal contractors came long before the Oct. 1 government shutdown. Earlier this year, during Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts, thousands of Virginians were laid off.

Democrats in the commonwealth hope that voter anger over the firings and furloughs will carry them to victory on Tuesday night. On the campaign trail, Spanberger talks about sticking up for federal workers in the face of the “chaos from Washington.” At a campaign event Thursday, Spanberger put it this way: “The stakes of this election are serious.”

As furloughs stretch into a second month, Virginia Republicans have also seen a political opening in the shutdown. “My opponent, all summer long, has been playing political football with federal workers by trying to say that she loves them more than anyone else,” Earle-Sears said on the debate stage, and then criticized Spanberger for encouraging Democrats in Congress to resist any funding deal that doesn’t include continuing health care subsidies.

But Earle-Sears hasn’t shied away from the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce. She has said she believes claims of “waste, fraud, and abuse” and argues that the impact of layoffs in Virginia will be minimal due to the economic strength she and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin have stewarded over the previous four years.

Political violence

A scandal in the race for attorney general has reverberated up the ticket. Early last month, text messages from 2022 show Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for attorney general and a former member of the Virginia legislature, describing hypothetical violence against a political opponent.

Earle-Sears and other Republican candidates have tried to tie the text messages to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, painting Democrats as politically violent.

Spanberger condemned the messages and political violence generally, but didn’t withdraw or double down on her endorsement of Jones. “It is up to voters to make an individual choice based on this information,” she said in the gubernatorial debate.

Jones’ Republican opponent, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, is appealing to Spanberger voters to split their tickets.

Redistricting 

Democrats in the Virginia legislature threw another wrench into the campaign last week by calling a surprise series of meetings after North Carolina became another state to redraw its congressional map to favor the GOP at the behest of President Trump.

On Friday, the Virginia legislature proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms. Because it needs to be approved by legislators again next year before voters can finalize the amendment next spring, its success depends on Spanberger winning her race and Democrats maintaining control of the House of Delegates.

How much the redistricting plan changes voters’ minds is up for debate. Close to a million voters cast their ballots before the Democrats announced their plan, while the redistricting session took delegates off the trail during the final full week of campaigning.

Earle-Sears, who presides over the state Senate in her role as lieutenant governor, was also called back to Richmond. She still managed to hold events around the state, and a press conference on the steps of the Virginia Capitol, while a small crowd held “Winsome For Governor” signs.

Spanberger has made few public comments about redistricting, beyond signalling her general support.

Transgender youth

Republicans up and down the ballot have made Virginia’s transgender youth a major campaign issue.

The argument over transgender athletes and bathrooms in Virginia schools really took off when Republican Glenn Youngkin made it a focus of his 2021 campaign for governor. Arguably, it helped him become the first GOP governor elected in more than a decade.

But, despite Republicans spending millions on ads around transgender students in 2025, recent polling shows it’s a top concern for 3 percent of voters. The economy and countering Trump’s policies are at the forefront of most voters’ minds.

Spanberger has said she likely leads on the subject because Republicans have been “villainizing kids.”

“Particularly efforts to heavily politicize a group of kids who need a bit of grace, and the adults around them to show thoughtfulness,” the former congresswoman said.

“I’m not taking a stand because it’s the easy thing to do. Of course, it’s not easy. I’m being abused for it,” Earle-Sears said, comparing her support for cisgender students to the civil rights movement.