Hey there, 

I’m writing to you hunched over my laptop in a booth at Perly’s in Richmond.  A patron at the countertop is talking about New York City’s mayoral race as a booth of people wearing Abigail Spanberger shirts eat brunch nearby. 

Sorry I missed you yesterday. But Election Day came up fast and I was in the field. 

I spoke to nearly a dozen Virginia voters at three different polling places about their top issues. The majority of this small sample said they were motivated to vote because of the negative impacts of Trump administration policies and the high cost of living. 

It was also notable that many of them said they identified with neither party. It’s a sign of just how disaffected people have become with our politics, even as Democrats are celebrating election victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York. 

Below, I offer up a take on yesterday’s election results and consider what we can expect from Democrats in the months to come. 

Plus, my editor recommends a good podcast episode to understand this historical moment. 

A housekeeping item: my next newsletter will publish on Friday as part of a collaboration I’m doing with Dogwood’s parent publisher, Courier Newsroom, and its politics-focused FWIW  newsletter. 

Abigail Spanberger supporters celebrate her winning Virginia’s gubernatorial election on November 4, 2025. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood) 

For much of the gubernatorial campaign in Virginia, the question wasn’t whether Democrat Abigail Spanberger would win, it was what her margin of victory would be. 

Spanberger ultimately beat Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by a whopping 15 points. That by itself would have been enough for Democrats to reasonably argue they had a mandate from voters. 

But on top of Spanberger’s big win, Jay Jones won his race for attorney general despite a texting scandal, state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi won the race for lieutenant governor, and Democrats picked up 13 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. Taken all together, Democrats are living up to the preferred walk-up song of House Speaker Don Scott: “All I Do Is Win.” 

Republicans’ focus on Jones’ texts clearly moved some voters, one of whom I actually met on Election Day. And those texts will follow Jones the rest of his political life.

But in the end, Jones beat Miyares by six points with the simple message that he would try to hold Trump accountable in ways that Miyares never had. 

And perhaps, as my editor suggested to me, after a decade of Trump’s scandalous politics, a candidate’s bad behavior is no longer disqualifying for most voters—at least as long as it’s their party’s candidate.  

As one voter put it to me about Jones outside a voting precinct in Bristow:

“He said a few things I didn’t like, but, you know, so did the guy in the White House, so I can’t hold him for that.”

• Jessie Nguyen at WRIC reports on the areas of Virginia that will be most impacted by delays and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

                                                                                                                                          

• Voters in Virginia, New Jersey, California, and New York cited the economy as a major concern in exit polls on Election Day, the Associated Press reports. 

   

• Jared Serre at FFXnow reports on US Rep. James Walkinshaw’s visit to a food bank in Fairfax County.

Voters cast their ballots in Bristow on November 4, 2025. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood)

Virginia Democrats just got a big infusion of political capital. Now, it’s time to see how they will spend it. 

The state constitutional amendments are perhaps the most important things Democrats will advance in the upcoming session. They’re all but certain to succeed,  given they have the majorities they need in both chambers. 

In terms of actual bills, it seems likely that Virginia Democrats are poised to again advance legislation to raise the minimum wage and expand public sector collective bargaining rights. Spanberger has indicated she would sign such bills into law. 

There is a bigger question around “right-to-work” that could come up. Spanberger said she doesn’t support repealing it, but indicated she’s open to expanding workers’ rights in other ways. 

Still, given the commanding mandate Democrats have, it’s not hard to imagine progressive Democrats mounting an effort to file legislation that would require workers to pay union dues where they benefit from contracts negotiated by unions. 

That’s just one issue where progressives may try to apply pressure to the proud pragmatism of Spanberger. 

It’s hard to imagine her vetoing a repeal of “right-to-work,” which would be a historic expansion of workers’ rights in the notoriously anti-union South. 

As Spanberger put it in her Election Day acceptance speech: “I will always stand up for Virginia workers. Always.”

What that actually looks like in terms of policy will be worth watching.

Attendees stand and put their hands on their chests as they wait for President Donald Trump to speak at the America Business Forum, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Both my editor, Keya Vakil, and I count ourselves among the many admirers of writer John Ganz’s substack, Unpopular Front. 

This week, Mr. Vakil flagged a lecture that Ganz gave at the University of Chicago that offered a sobering, eloquent explanation of the rise of Trumpism and how we arrived at this moment. 

Ganz combines a scarily impressive intellectual breadth with a down to earth manner of speaking and good humored self-deprecation. In other words, everything I aspire to be. 

You can listen to the lecture, which is more of a chat really, on Spotify here. 

You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.

Our mailing address is:
Courier Newsroom
611 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington, DC 20003-4303