Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger won her seat by 15 points last November. Less than three months later, nearly half the state already disapproves of how she is doing the job.
A Washington Post, Schar School poll of 1,100 registered Virginia voters found Spanberger at 47 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval, a net favorability of just +1, Fox News Digital reported. That makes her the worst-performing Virginia governor at this stage of a term since at least 1994, when the Washington Post began tracking the number.
The collapse is striking not because a Democrat landed in trouble, that happens, but because of how fast the floor gave way. Spanberger ran as a centrist, a former federal agent, a mother of three girls in Virginia public schools. Voters gave her a comfortable mandate. Eighty days later, the centrist brand is in tatters, and the backlash over gerrymandering, gun control, and tax proposals has barely begun to mature.
Every Virginia governor since the mid-1990s entered office with a wider cushion of goodwill. Mark Warner posted a 78-20 approval-disapproval split at a comparable point. Jim Gilmore III, a Republican, stood at 63-30. Tim Kaine was at 62-31. Bob McDonnell, another Republican, came in at 59-39. Even Terry McAuliffe, not exactly a beloved figure by the time he left, managed 52-30 early on.
Ralph Northam, who survived a blackface scandal and still finished his term, was at 48-37, a net of +11. Spanberger's net is +1.
Her predecessor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, posted 54-39 at the same stage. National Review noted that Spanberger's current numbers are actually slightly weaker than Youngkin's approval-disapproval split near the end of his term, 50 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval, meaning she is starting her governorship roughly where he finished his.
Her approval mark sits 13 points below the historical average for Virginia governors in Post polling since the 1990s. That is not a soft start. It is a historically weak one.
The sharpest warning sign sits in the independent voter column. Spanberger won 59 percent of independents in the 2025 exit polls. In the new survey, the Washington Examiner reported, she has fallen to 45 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval among that same group, a swing of roughly 14 points in a matter of weeks.
Gregory Roddy, an independent-leaning voter in Fairfax County, put it bluntly to the Examiner:
"Now, she's just a bot for the Democratic Party."
That is one voter. But the numbers suggest he is not alone. When a governor who campaigned on bipartisan common sense loses independents that fast, the problem is not messaging. It is governance.
Six years ago, Spanberger tweeted a clear position on redistricting:
"Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority."
That was then. Now, critics say Spanberger's administration is backing a mid-decade redistricting referendum that would redraw Virginia's congressional map to Democratic advantage. Five of the newly drawn districts would originate in Fairfax, according to Fox News Digital, a move that opponents argue would overpower the voices of voters in central and Western Virginia, exactly the kind of outcome Spanberger once called "detrimental to our democracy."
The referendum was not set to be officially decided by voters until April 21. But the political damage was already accumulating. Spanberger's office recently denied claims that internal deals had been made involving her personally to help elect more Democrats, particularly in the Second Congressional District covering Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore.
The Virginia Supreme Court cleared the path for the redistricting referendum in a ruling that could hand Democrats as many as four additional congressional seats, a fact that makes the governor's old anti-gerrymandering rhetoric ring especially hollow.
Mark Rozell, dean of George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government and a co-sponsor of the poll, told the Washington Post that while some degree of polarization is "baked in," the result was "unusual" at this early stage for a governor who had "long cultivated a centrist image."
Redistricting is not the only front. Spanberger is poised to sign sweeping gun-control measures drafted by Democrats in Fairfax, and the legislative session in Richmond featured tax-increase bills alongside the gun package. For a governor who introduced herself to voters as a former federal agent who "carried a gun every single day" for her job, the pivot has not gone unnoticed.
At a 2025 rally, Spanberger framed the issue in personal terms:
"I'm a mother of three girls in Virginia Public Schools. I'm also a former federal agent who carried a gun every single day for my job. So I come at this issue as someone who cares deeply about the safety of our kids and as someone who understands the responsibilities of owning and of carrying a firearm."
The rhetoric sounds moderate. The legislation does not. And voters appear to be noticing the gap. At least one Virginia Democrat has already broken with his own party over both gun rights and gerrymandering, drawing instant backlash from the progressive wing, a sign that the tension is not limited to Republican critics.
Seven percent of Virginians surveyed said Spanberger's tenure has been "too conservative", a small but telling slice that suggests pressure from the left as well. Governing a state where both flanks are unhappy after 80 days is a remarkable achievement of a particular kind.
Breitbart characterized the numbers as evidence of early "buyer's remorse," arguing that Spanberger ran as a moderate but executed "the bait-and-switch we all knew she would" by governing to the left on immigration, criminal justice, taxes, DEI, and gun policy. The Washington Times reported that the decline followed a Richmond legislative session that featured the tax increases, the gun-control package, and the redistricting referendum, a combination that upset voters across ideological lines.
The political landscape in Virginia has been shifting for months. Republicans recently flipped a deep-blue Prince William County seat, and a separate court ruling struck down newly drawn district maps in a case that underscored the intensity of the redistricting fight.
Meanwhile, one of the newly drawn districts already has three notable Democratic candidates jockeying for position: state delegate Dan Helmer of Fairfax, former first lady Dorothy McAuliffe, and JP Cooney, a former deputy to special counsel Jack Smith. The crowded field suggests Democrats see the new maps as an opportunity, which is precisely what critics accuse Spanberger of engineering.
Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who left office with stronger numbers than Spanberger currently posts, has signaled a possible political comeback, telling supporters that six weeks out of office "felt like six years." If Spanberger's trajectory continues, the opening for a Republican resurgence in Virginia will only widen.
Spanberger defeated then-Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears by 15 points. Democrats swept every statewide office, with Ghazala Hashmi winning the lieutenant governorship and Jay Jones winning the attorney general's race. The blue wave was real. But a mandate is not a blank check, and the speed of the erosion suggests voters expected something different from what they got.
Fox News Digital reached out to Spanberger for comment. The governor's response, or lack of one, was not detailed in the report.
The numbers tell a plain story. A governor who sold herself as a pragmatic bridge-builder has, in 80 days, managed to post the worst early approval rating Virginia has seen in three decades. The redistricting reversal, the gun-control push, the tax proposals, each one alone might be survivable. Together, they look less like governance and more like a party wish list delivered under a centrist label.
Voters can forgive a lot. What they tend not to forgive is being told one thing and shown another.
