This isn’t the primary time Virginia voters have braced for a authorities shutdown in a partisan standoff over Obamacare just some weeks earlier than they elect their subsequent governor.
In October 2013, the federal authorities shut down for 16 days after lawmakers failed to achieve a deal to fund it. President Barack Obama and different Democratic leaders loudly blamed Republicans in Congress, dubbing it the “tea occasion shutdown” — and polls confirmed that the general public overwhelmingly agreed.
Weeks later, Democrat Terry McAuliffe eked out a slim win within the Virginia governor’s election, defying a historic development. In 11 of the final 12 Virginia governor’s races, voters elected the candidate of the occasion out of energy within the White Home. The lone exception was in 2013.
Quick-forward to the current. Republicans management the White Home, the federal authorities barreled right into a shutdown at midnight Wednesday morning, and a race for governor in Virginia is weeks away. Democratic former Rep. Abigail Spanberger has thus far led Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in each polling and fundraising.
Nationwide Republicans are already aggressively casting blame on Democrats, who’re pushing to incorporate further well being care cash within the authorities funding invoice, for the shutdown. After Spanberger has spent the whole marketing campaign main in public polls, the brand new developments elevate questions on whether or not a shutdown might threaten her path to victory — and block the identical historic development that had been working in her favor.
“One thing like this, relying how [Democrats] reply, might be a giant opening” for Republicans, mentioned Jimmy Keady, a Richmond-based Republican advisor.
Keady mentioned Republicans “have performed a fairly good job” blaming Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats extra broadly for a shutdown.
“You’re going to now have Democrats shutting down the federal government, and I feel that has framed in a method the place Republicans can push again on that narrative of who’s truly shutting the federal government down,” he mentioned.
Democrats have pushed for any funding deal to incorporate measures that will prolong expiring Obamacare subsidies and to undo President Donald Trump’s Medicaid cuts.
Republicans management the White Home and each chambers of Congress, however Democrats have leverage as a result of it takes 60 votes to finish debate on laws within the Senate and the GOP holds 53 seats.
Different Republicans expressed extra ambiguity about how the blame recreation may play out in Virginia.
“I don’t know the way that is going to bounce. I feel it relies upon how lengthy it goes on,” mentioned former Rep. Tom Davis, a Republican who represented a northern Virginia district from 1995 to 2008.
Spanberger instructed NBC Information in an announcement that the shutdown would harm Virginia’s economic system, blaming Trump and Earle-Sears for the approaching harm and connecting a authorities closure’s influence to the influence of cuts by Trump’s Division of Authorities Effectivity this yr.
“Virginia households are already feeling the pressure of excessive prices, and Virginia staff and enterprise leaders are deeply anxious in regards to the impacts of an impending shutdown and the roles cuts the Trump Administration is threatening,” Spanberger mentioned. “Virginians are already going through the dire impacts of DOGE, reckless tariffs, and assaults on our healthcare, and now, as soon as once more, President Trump is escalating his assaults on Virginia jobs and our economic system. And with every new assault, Winsome Earle-Sears refuses to face up for Virginia’s workforce and economic system.”
Earle-Sears blamed Democrats for the looming shutdown, saying in an interview Tuesday on NBC Information’ “Meet the Press NOW” that Spanberger ought to have urged Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, to comply with Republicans’ funding deal.
“I’m hoping that my opponent, Abigail Spanberger, will inform her mates, Senators Kaine and Warner, who’re from Virginia, to not shut down our authorities, to offer a seamless decision that’s clear — to vote for that, since you’re going to place all of these federal staff out of a job,” Earle-Sears mentioned. “My opponent has been talking about that each one summer season lengthy, and she or he wants to come back and inform them precisely that: Vote for a clear persevering with decision to maintain our federal staff of their jobs.”
Davis, the Republican former congressman whose Washington-area district is house to many federal staff, mentioned these voters had already more than likely turned on Trump this yr after he, by way of DOGE, moved to shrink the federal workforce.
“I feel the administration has most likely misplaced loads of goodwill with federal staff after DOGE and the cuts right here,” Davis mentioned. “So by way of who they’re prone to imagine, I feel it’s unclear at this level [if] what would ordinarily benefit the Republicans works for them.”
A chronic shutdown would more than likely danger including extra pressure on federal staff and members of the army, who would go with out pay throughout a authorities closure. As well as, Trump has threatened to fireplace federal staff throughout a shutdown. An extended shutdown may also crush a broader U.S. economic system that’s already exhibiting indicators of weak spot.
However Democrats nonetheless have historical past on their facet.
“Something is feasible, however you’ve a bunch of oldsters that use these elections in Virginia historically within the final 50 years to ship a message to the occasion within the White Home,” Davis mentioned.
Democrats, in the meantime, seem much less involved about being blamed, with lawmakers, occasion officers and Spanberger all expressing confidence that voters will view the shutdown as half and parcel of a broader development of chaos in Washington sown and seeded by the Republicans who management the White Home and each chambers of Congress.
Nonetheless, the actual results federal authorities shutdowns have in Virginia generate some unpredictability.
In an interview in February, across the time of the DOGE job cuts, Spanberger mentioned she rapidly discovered as a member of Congress how dramatically shutdowns (and near-shutdowns) harmed her constituents.
“When there are authorities shutdowns, Virginia is essentially the most economically impacted state,” she mentioned then. Her time in Congress began in the midst of a 35-day authorities shutdown throughout Trump’s first time period.
“When there’s even a risk of a authorities shutdown, we might simply reiterate how damaging that’s, as a result of, in the specter of dropping your wage for a small time frame, individuals don’t take their households out to eat. Individuals don’t cease and purchase youngsters sweet on the comfort store,” she mentioned. “They don’t purchase a brand new microwave if their microwave is on the fritz. That’s solely extra profound at this second, the place individuals are anxious about whether or not they may lose their job.”
In the meantime, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Earle-Sears’ greatest ally, has been linking the shutdown to nationwide Democratic leaders like Schumer.
Nonetheless, a number of Democratic members of Virginia’s congressional delegation had been assured that voters would blame Trump for the shutdown and that the frustration would bleed into their emotions about Earle-Sears and different Republicans.
“I feel individuals acknowledge that Donald Trump is the chief chaos agent. So to the extent that there’s chaos, I don’t suppose it’s a tough promote to persuade those that Donald Trump is the genesis of that chaos, and I feel that hurts any candidate who’s aligned with Donald Trump, and in Virginia’s case this yr that’s Winsome Sears and the Republican ticket,” Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw mentioned.
Democratic Rep. Jennifer McClellan mentioned, “You’ve had Abigail Spanberger from Day 1 saying that she would get up and combat for all Virginians, together with these harmed by the actions of the Trump administration.
“And also you’ve had Winsome Sears, who’s both been silent or cheering Trump on or saying that each one these federal staff that dwell in Virginia being fired shouldn’t be a giant deal,” she mentioned, referring to Earle-Sears’ feedback this yr enjoying down the influence of the federal job cuts in Virginia.
There are warning indicators for each events in latest polling, together with some that underscore difficulties Democrats might face in deflecting blame.
A nationwide New York Occasions/Siena College ballot performed final week discovered 33% of registered voters say Democrats in Congress and Trump and Republicans in Congress deserve equal blame for a authorities shutdown. One other 26% say Trump and congressional Republicans can be in charge, whereas 19% say the identical of Democrats in Congress. The ballot did discover some room for each events to make their instances, with 21% saying they’d not heard sufficient to weigh within the challenge.
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., mentioned he had not spoken with Spanberger a couple of shutdown, however he mentioned that he “can’t think about that she desires a shutdown” and that voters can be likelier in charge Republicans as a result of “they management the Home, they management the Senate, they’ve the White Home.”
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., mentioned a shutdown “helps Democrats, as a result of the Republicans aren’t even on the town.” The GOP-controlled Home left city after it handed a seven-week authorities funding invoice and isn’t scheduled to return till Oct. 7.
Requested whether or not he was involved that Democrats — together with Spanberger — would catch blame for a shutdown, Kaine mentioned, “I feel Virginians perceive who’s at fault for this.”
