Talk of the Town
(WASHINGTON) — Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a rising star in the Democratic Party who captured the governor’s office last year by a large margin, will deliver the Democrats’ response Tuesday night to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, focusing on affordability and the chaos she believes the Trump administration has caused at home and abroad, her team told reporters.
Spanberger, who was inaugurated in January after serving three terms in the House of Representatives, will discuss lowering the persistently high costs of housing, health care, energy and groceries despite the administration’s insistence that some of these costs have come down.
The daughter of a law enforcement officer and a nurse, Spanberger focused relentlessly on affordability throughout her 2025 gubernatorial campaign. Despite the economy being the top issue Trump ran on in the 2024 election, it’s been one of the issues he’s struggled with the most during his second term, as Americans still haven’t felt the “Trump boom” they were promised.
In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 57% of Americans disapprove of how Trump’s handling the economy, and 64% disapproved of how he’s handling tariffs on imported goods.
Spanberger, a former CIA officer, will also address how the Trump administration is contributing to greater worldwide uncertainty.
Trump and his team have spent a large portion of his second term so far focusing on foreign policy, including Trump going head-to-head with some U.S. allies and becoming more aggressive on the world stage. A former federal law enforcement officer who worked on narcotics and money-laundering cases for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Spanberger will also address what critics call the chaos caused by the Trump administration, which continues its immigration enforcement efforts that Americans are seeing in their communities.
She is also expected to challenge Republicans in Congress for not standing up to Trump.
Several Democrats have invited survivors of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to attend Trump’s address, while others plan to skip the event altogether in protest.
The governor will give her speech live from Colonial Williamsburg, the restored 18th century capital where Virginian representatives voted for its delegation to Congress to propose independence for all 13 colonies from Great Britain, and later adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights — which influenced the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
Spanberger has been able to appeal to both Democratic and Republican voters. She won the governor election in November by more than 15% — the largest margin for a Democrat in the state since 1961 — winning counties that voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
There are at least two major counter events that several Democrats plan to attend, including MoveOn’s People’s State of the Union, which is promoting the participation of more than 20 members of Congress; and the “State of the Swamp” event by Defiance.org that features a handful of celebrities appearing by video or in person, such as Robert De Niro.
Spanberger prepared for her remarks by watching speeches other Democrats have delivered in response to Trump’s previous addresses to Congress.
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(VIRGINIA) — Virginia residents could soon vote on whether the legislature can redraw the state’s congressional map mid-decade, a key development in a larger push by both parties to redraw U.S. House seats in their favor ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Friday signed a bill that sets an April 21 statewide vote on a constitutional amendment that would allow legislators to redraw congressional districts in the middle of the decade. Congressional maps are usually only drawn after the release of data from the census.
Democrats have framed the potential redraw as a response to how Republicans have redrawn U.S. House seats in their favor through mid-decade redistricting already in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri. Democrats have netted potential seats in California and Utah so far, but have fewer opportunities overall to redistrict.
Spanberger’s bill signing came the day after Democrats in Virginia’s state legislature unveiled the proposed congressional map that they hope to implement in time for the 2026 midterms, which could allow Democrats to potentially flip up to four GOP-held seats if implemented.
The map itself will not be voted on in the April referendum, but Democrats indicated they wanted to have a map proposal made public beforehand so that voters could know what may be passed into law if the referendum goes in their favor.
Democratic legislators will need to get through ongoing legal challenges as well, as a state court in Virginia ruled last month that the constitutional amendment is illegal because of the procedures the Democrats used to move the amendment through the legislature. The case is being taken up by the state’s Supreme Court.
Republicans opposing the Democratic-led redistricting effort slammed the proposed map as a partisan gerrymander.
“Only those who crave complete political control and are willing to silence millions of Virginians will attempt to defend this abomination,” Jason Miyares, the former Republican Attorney General of Virginia who is a co-chair of the Virginians for Fair Maps group, wrote on X on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in nearby Maryland, Democrats are split over whether the state should take part in the mid-decade redistricting scramble.
Maryland’s House of Delegates recently passed a bill containing a new congressional map that could allow Democrats to flip the state’s lone GOP-held congressional district.
But that effort, championed by Maryland’s Gov. Wes Moore, is held up in the state Senate, where Senate leader Bill Ferguson has said he remains opposed to mid-decade redistricting. Ferguson told reporters on Tuesday that it “is a path towards mutually assured destruction.”
ABC News’ Ford McCracken and Halle Troadec contributed to this report.
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A winter storm watch goes into effect for the region at 1 p.m. on Friday and expires at 1 p.m.…