RICHMOND, Va. — Abigail Spanberger is asked about her time in the CIA a lot. During a Reddit AMA in April, she received more questions about her career as an officer with the agency than any other topic.
One person asked if she was “like a real live Hollywood spy.” Marijuana came up three times, according to a tally on cut-out construction paper hanging in a small conference room in her Richmond office. Healthcare came up twice, but it is the reason Spanberger decided to run for Congress in the 7th District of Virginia, hoping for a chance to challenge Republican Rep. Dave Brat.
Like other first-time Democratic candidates, Spanberger decided to run the day the House voted on its bill to replace the Affordable Care Act without waiting for a score from the Congressional Budget Office. That vote coupled with her frustration over the outcome of the 2016 election led the soft-spoken Spanberger to try to become part of a blue wave for Democrats this November.
If Spanberger makes it through the June Democratic primary, she will have to take out a giant-killer to do so. Brat himself took Washington by surprise when he defeated former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary in 2014.
A key agitator in Congress, Brat cozied up to the president and defied the party establishment. Spanberger presents herself as a level-headed alternative that would work across the aisle. Brat declined to comment for this story.
“For me it’s about changing the conversation and really working to make sure that even if on one side the rhetoric and anger is really intense, that we’re not volleying back with the same anger and intensity,” she said.
Spanberger doesn’t often mention President Trump by name, alluding to him rarely. It’s one key difference between Spanberger and fellow Democratic candidate Dan Ward, whom she faces in the primary. Instead she’s focused on distancing herself from Brat and convincing voters that the 7th District can be flipped.
“Brat? No thanks! I’ll have a ‘Berger,” reads a sign with a painting of a forked bratwurst hanging in her campaign office.
“I had a man come up to me last night at a forum who said, ‘I’m a lifelong Republican, I voted for Dave Brat twice and I’m voting for you,’” Spanberger recalled. The man, she added, was disappointed in Brat’s support for Trump.
Before her time at the CIA, Spanberger working on money laundering and narcotics cases for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. In both positions, Spanberger talks about working under Democratic and Republican presidencies, touting an ability to work with both sides. It’s experience she’s hoping resonates with voters who are tired of the polarization in Congress. Spanberger’s “level-headed” pitch is a far cry from Brat’s defiant, sometimes hostile relationship with his own party’s House leadership.
Spanberger sees a shift in her usually reliably Republican district. The once “polite, southern” region where she says Democrats have long been in “hiding” is waking up.
“My husband thought his parents were Republicans because they never talked about politics,” Spanberger said. “Turns out they’re lifelong Democrats, who knew?”
Now, they wear their “Spanberger for Congress” pins everywhere they go.
The new enthusiasm is why Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., thinks the 7th District is prime territory for an upset.
“There are dynamics there that create a more favorable environment than the numbers might suggest,” Connolly said. “I’d put it in play just because of the uniqueness of the incumbent, how he got there. His relationship to the Republican establishment, his identification with the far Right here may not play that well with moderate Republicans and independents, especially those who liked Eric Cantor.”
Connolly thinks both Spanberger and Ward, a former Marine fighter pilot, would be “impressive” candidates in a head-to-head contest with Brat, but added, “It’s a good year for Democratic women.”
In 2017, Virginia showed the first signs of a possible wave. Democrats won major victories in the House of Delegates, seizing long-held GOP seats, and women played a major part.
Democrats carried the historically solid Republican counties of Chesterfield and Henrico. Spanberger looks to Dawn Adams as evidence that the 7th District can turn blue. Adams, the first open lesbian to be elected to the House of Delegates, ousted a centrist Republican who’d held his seat for a decade. Adams’ win in Chesterfield was one of the biggest upsets in the 2017 election — roughly half of her seat is in the 7th District.
Adams thinks Spanberger can win because she’s “hardworking,” has “integrity,” and, “She’s just a badass.”
“She didn’t just push pencils,” Adams said before introducing Spanberger at a meet-and-greet in the suburbs of Richmond.
Speaking to nearly 40 people in an affluent suburban neighborhood, Spanberger played up her CIA credentials.
“I worked to recruit people to commit espionage on behalf of the United States,” Spanberger said, standing on a short brick wall in a constituent’s backyard.
“As someone who had worked in strange, unique, and often times difficult circumstances to collect the information that would allow our policymakers to make good decisions,” Spanberger continued, “the fact that our Congress would vote on that [healthcare] bill without so much as a CBO score, without waiting for the CBO score to understand the impact of their choices was inexcusable to me.”
Constituents were eager to hear about her time with the CIA, many citing it as the reason they were attracted to her campaign. A number of those in the predominantly white, middle-aged crowd weren’t politically active before 2016.
For Octavia and Ted Winefield it was their first-ever meet-and-greet with a candidate. They don’t consider themselves political, but said the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville last summer really “shook things up” in Virginia.
“The racial issues really did really seem to delineate the good guys and the bad guys,” said Octavia.
So rather than do what they have done in the past and “grumble” but shy away, they’re becoming more engaged because they don’t think Brat will move the district in the right direction “as far as the gun thing” is concerned.
After the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., students in Virginia’s 7th District have stirred up the community. They planned a walkout in support of gun violence prevention and hosted a town hall. They invited Brat, but he declined the invitation.
“I know it’s a different stance than what he believes in but these are children, come say what your view is and say why,” said Michelle Kennon, who has lived in the district for 25 years. “Back it up.”
Kennon and her friend Jennifer Miller, a five-year resident of the district, admit they weren’t engaged politically until after 2016. They went to events hosted by gun control group Moms Demand Action, and started meeting with women in their community. “We all kind of came out of the woodwork after the election,” Miller said.
Though both women think the other Democrat in the race, Ward, is equally aligned with them on the issues, they’re attracted to Spanberger.
“I thought he was impressive, but women,” said Kennon.
“There’s a lot of energy right now around women and so I think even if Dan Ward politically would be the same — there’s just a lot of energy to elect women,” said Miller.
First-time female candidates have dominated in every primary this month, but whether it’s enough to boost Spanberger remains to be seen. Republicans have held the 7th District since the 1970s, and though Democrats hold an enthusiasm advantage, election trackers favor Brat.
