‘Scorched It All’: How Trump Lost the Affordability Debate, According to Abigail Spanberger Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger on how to deliver when it comes to cost of living. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger stands for a portrait outside her ceremonial office at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, on Oct. 9, 2026. | Francis Chung/POLITICO Abigail Spanberger rode furor over rising costs to dominate Virginia’s gubernatorial race last year — putting her among the first class of Democrats elected on the promise to tackle the affordability crisis. Her victory, along with Gov. Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, was seen as a harbinger of Democratic gains in the midterms.

She’s familiar with blue waves: Spanberger was part of the class of lawmakers swept into the House in 2018 on a similar anti-Donald Trump backlash. While serving on Capitol Hill she carved out a bipartisan reputation that she leveraged during her gubernatorial run. In her first year as governor, Spanberger says she knocked out every priority of her affordability agenda, from capping out-of-pocket insulin costs to incentivizing affordable housing construction.

On the eve of an election where it seems like every Democrat nationwide has adopted similar cost-lowering messaging, Spanberger reflects on what she accomplished in Virginia and offers some advice for an incoming Congress with a likely Democratic majority. But she blames the Trump administration for sabotaging what’s possible at the state level with its war in Iran driving up prices. She also explains why she thinks the data center debate is here to stay — and how affordability will play into the 2028 presidential election. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Both you and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran on affordability. What would you say it is that unites both centrist and leftist Democrats on this issue?

It’s a question of what’s the commonality between constituents and voters in any place in the country and the hardships, challenges, difficulties that they’re feeling. In terms of building out my campaign in 2025, it was directly responsive to the things that I heard along the campaign trail. Even in the earliest of my campaign days for governor, certainly the focus was on supporting Virginians in our economy and strengthening our schools, but my messaging and, frankly, more importantly, my policy proposals on affordability became more and more of a focus as issues of affordability became more and more of an absolutely salient issue that, no matter where I went in Virginia, people were saying the same variation of the same thing.

Will that unity between the two wings of the party inevitably break down once Democrats have to govern?

I’m slightly going to reject the premise of the question. When I got into office and passed 100% of our Affordable Virginia agenda, 75% was passed with bipartisan legislation. We’re moving in the right direction, certainly on issues of housing affordability, energy and healthcare, which are the three pillars of our affordability proposal. It is very difficult to have very clear, immediate, immediate impact. There are certain places where you can have immediate, immediate impact.

But for anybody who’s running in 2026, anyone who’s going to get sworn into Congress in 2027, their priority has to be on being responsive to the people that elected them and that they serve. Some of that will be legislative policy focused on affordability. And frankly, presumably, some of it will be addressing the things that are driving up costs: trade wars, tariffs, the war with Iran and what that’s done to fuel costs. Certainly H.R. 1, what that has done to driving up costs, driving up health care costs or, for many people, eliminating health care — which drives up costs in a substantial way.

So if they are elected, they need to be responsive and work to deliver results. On the legislative front, of course, there will be challenges, because there will still be a President Trump. But to demonstrate in everything they do, every single day, that they are being responsive to the needs of their constituents. No matter who the person elected is, if they’re a Democrat who’s doing that, they will be moving things forward to the benefit of their constituents, even if that benefit may not be immediate, immediate.

You were elected by a huge margin, and many Virginians interpreted that as a mandate to go big on affordability and pursue bold policies that many in the base have been clamoring for. Do you feel like you spent that political capital on the right things?

I delivered my entire affordable Virginia agenda. We’re working within our state agencies to be prepared for the kind of ongoing impacts of H.R. 1, which of course is just getting worse and worse. So I think I spent my political capital. Although I will say that, on the bills and the work that we’ve done, it was a pretty straightforward endeavor to build coalitions around the priorities and the bills that I championed through the General Assembly.

What have been the biggest obstacles you faced in addressing the affordability issue, and how does that inform any advice that you’d give Democrats after November who are going to need to make this leap from rhetoric to action?

H.R. 1, the war with Iran, trade wars with Canada and horrible tariff policies. Those are the biggest headwinds that we’re facing in Virginia, and I think arguably most states across the country are facing.

When you’re trying to increase housing supply, yet in Virginia we’re seeing our construction workforce plummet because of aggressive immigration tactics — not targeting “criminals and the worst of the worst,” but targeting people who are otherwise building homes and working on construction in Virginia — that creates a real impediment.

When agriculture is your state’s number-one private industry. The majority of that industry is comprised of smaller family farms, and initial tariff wars drive up input costs.

Then the war with Iran puts fuel prices through the roof, and then the president starts the trade war with your number-one agricultural trading partner, Canada. Those are all headwinds.

Right now we’re having to spend state money to mitigate some of the impacts. And just simply into the future there will not be enough state money to offset all of the outcomes. And so, for anyone who’s going to Congress, central to the things that are negatively impacting their communities are the bad federal policies that some of their predecessors would have voted for, and other things that require significant oversight and ideally a path toward working to reverse.

Reversing some of the greatest harms of H.R. 1. I’m not sure if that will get through, and if the president would sign such a thing, but they need to be poised and ready to be able to move on that into the future.

They need to be poised and ready to actually assert congressional authority as it relates to the war with Iran. That has major impacts on affordability. They need to assert their constitutional power on issues related to chaotic trade policy, because that’s going to be essential to getting some of the chaos tamped down. That’s been a primary driver of costs.

Is affordability just about bringing prices down, or do you believe it should also involve addressing wage disparities?

It can be all things. Notably in Virginia, we raised the minimum wage. We pushed through legislation that requires wage transparency, meaning that jobs have to list the pay range for what a job would be offering. An employer can’t ask you for your prior employment history. I have done a lot on the issues of making sure you’re actually getting paid what you’re worth. And we’ve passed, shockingly for the first time, real strong wage protections and anti-wage theft.

We haven’t had the means by which to actually enforce wage theft laws in Virginia, and so we’ve moved forward with that. So yes, it is an essential element of it, because if your boss is stealing your wages, then that only adds insult to injury when you’re contending with high prices everywhere else.

Some on the left argue that if Democrats can really deliver for people on the economy, they don’t need to moderate on cultural issues. What’s your take on that?

I don’t know what they mean on “moderate on cultural issues.”On trans issues, for example, not adopting some of the Republican lines around trans kids in sports and holding firm to the positions that the party has had in the past.

I would urge you to look at all the times that I’ve been noted as being the clearest example of how you don’t cede to Republican attacks. So I think you abide by your principles, you fight ferociously and you win. This whole binary where I get cast as a moderate — I would look at my record on justice issues, LGBTQ record, my abortion-rights record, because I will put it up against anybody’s.

Back to Congress, you’ve named a number of problems that, at the federal level, you think Democrats should address. But what do you think is the first thing a Democratic Congress should do to address costs if they retake one or both chambers next year?

It’s being very clear about outlining the problem and papering the case toward repealing or repealing the worst of the elements of H.R. 1, asserting congressional authority over the war with Iran and trade and tariff policies. When people are campaigning on “the war with Iran is driving up costs,” that message is resonating because it is true. So then, make clear congressional authority. It isn’t esoteric. Congress has the power to declare war. It is Congress that has the responsibility, certainly constitutionally, as it relates to war powers. But also we are pushing back against an administration that is haphazardly and recklessly not only putting our country in this perilous national security space, but also driving up costs.

Part of what they will be able to do if they utilize their authority is make very, very clear that they’re pushing back, conducting oversight. You can put good housing policy through, but if you can’t get the diesel fuel at a reasonable price to actually push housing supply across the country, and the construction materials across the country, and if the workforce isn’t there because of an aggressive immigration policy that is not going after, as the president said, “criminals,” et cetera. All the policy has to come with the other pieces where they stand up and demonstrate and speak to and stand up against the recklessness of this administration.

Do you think there’s a world where Democrats can productively work with the Trump White House on these kitchen-table issues, or is the relationship there too broken?

I would say never say never. But the reason that these pains are felt so severely is because the president’s signature policy ideal was to cut health care, imperil rural health clinics and hospitals, make it so that fewer people can go to medical school or nursing school with federally backed student loans — while giving major tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. His policies are adding fuel to the fire.

If there are places where a Democratic Congress could work with the Trump administration, you know, anything is possible. But it is like working to move something forward on scorched earth when, in fact, he’s the one who scorched it all.

How should Democrats talk about affordability in ’28? What do you think is the next front of that conversation? And I’m curious if you anticipate that data centers will continue to be very central to those conversations.

I think so. I think the conversation into the future will likely get distilled into different elements. Certainly, and correctly so, concerns about natural resources, concerns about energy consumption. Relatedly, concerns about AI, because in some parts in the country we have seen absolutely outrageous examples of heavily localized pollution and diesel generators going all day long, pumping localized pollutants into the air. All of these examples of the worst abuses and practices, I think, will be brought to the forefront. And so, yes, I do think data centers will be essential to the conversation.

I think that the conversation will fall into multiple categories of: What are people’s visions moving forward on affordability into ’28? I mean, I would love to live in a world where we have these elections in November, things start to get under control, and affordability is less and less of a central issue and focus. Unfortunately, for all of the reasons that I already mentioned — chief among them, that Donald Trump will still be president — I assess that that’s not likely the case. And so it’s going to be a continued drumbeat of all of the ways, like every lever that we’re trying to pull on to move things forward.

I do think that a clear element of the 2028 election will be all of the legislative priorities that will need to be signed by a future president who would be willing to sign them.

Especially things that would undo some of the worst harms of H.R. 1. Last question. There’s been plenty of speculation about your own national ambitions. Do you have any interest in running for president?

I have a job that I love. But there’s an end to your term. It’s not forever. What’s next for you?

The good thing about the Virginia reality, that we have a one-term governor, the only state in the nation, is that at no point during my governorship can anyone say, “Oh, but in your reelect, we need to prioritize…” I just get to do what I believe in, what I think is right, and we’ll see what opportunities exist in the future. But that’s a post-2030 problem for me — to find a job and get through my reading list.