Dr. Stephen Farnsworth: Abigail Spanberger, Yesli Vega, and the Fight for Virginia's 7th District
Left to right: Yesli Vega (R) and Abigail Spanberger (D) in election to represent VA-07. Courtesy of Marketwatch.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
I'm Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that's taking a look today at Virginia's seventh congressional district.
Thomas Bowman
It's one of the three most competitive congressional races in Virginia. And it's on the national radar in terms of what a Republican upset here might mean for the rest of the country on election night.
Michael Pope
To help us understand the campaign and the candidates, we're joined by a friend of the podcast who is director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington, Dr. Steven Farnsworth. Thanks for joining us.
Stephen Farnsworth
Glad to be here.
Thomas Bowman
All right, well, let's give a little bit of history on this Congressional seat before we really get started. So it was represented by William extra Billy Smith and George Allen. In 2000, voters selected a guy named Eric Cantor, who was the congressman for the seventh district for 14 years until he lost in a primary to Republican Dave Brat. And 2018 Dave Brat got unseated by Democrat Abigail Spanberger, Professor Farnsworth, this district was in Republican hands since the election of 1970, when Republican Kenneth Robinson was elected. How did it go from being a safe red seat for more than 40 years to being a swing seat?
Stephen Farnsworth
Well, there are two things that happened above all. One, of course, is the fact that the district has been dramatically redesigned over the years. This used to be a very Republican district, because it had a very, very Republican constituency there. Richmond suburbs, which were more conservative in the past, and they are now but also the rural areas out between Richmond and Fredericksburg, were also part of this district back in the day, and these are pretty conservative areas as well. So one of the big changes, of course, is the nature of the district itself in terms of how the lines were drawn. But the other issue, I think, is the fact that Virginia itself is changing. When you think about where people are with the passage of time and generations, you're seeing a much more willingness to vote for Democratic candidates in suburban areas. That was the case a generation ago, you can look going back, say to 2000 or so. And the areas that Democrats win now, particularly in the suburbs, were areas that weren't even competitive. In the past. If you think about Chesterfield, in the Richmond area, or Loudoun, Prince William, in Northern Virginia, some of the areas in Hampton Roads, it used to be pretty solidly red. Now, there has been this larger change in Virginia. And among all the districts in the state, the seventh is one of the districts where that kind of changing electorate in the suburbs has had the greatest impact.
Michael Pope
So you mentioned the changing lines has contributed to the changing political, you know, fortunes. I'm wondering about this most recent change, how what's the the change that happened this year in terms of the new boundaries... How did that change the seventh?
Stephen Farnsworth
About 20% of the voters in the seventh district now after the 2020 census, we're in the old seventh district. The district used to stretch from the Richmond suburbs to the Fredericksburg suburbs, particularly through Culpeper and Orange and some of the more rural communities in between. But now, the district is much more of a suburban district concentrated along I-95. Two thirds of the votes more than that, in fact, are going to be cast in Prince William, Stafford, Spotsylvania, and the City of Fredericksburg. And so you're looking at a district that he is almost entirely a new district. It's a district really in some ways that barely has an incumbent at all, because so many of the people who are in the seventh district now used to be in the first district used to be in the fifth district, a couple of other jurisdictions as well.
Michael Pope
All right, well, let's meet the candidates starting with the incumbent Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is a former CIA officer who was elected in that blue wave of 2018. Now I would like to take a look at how candidates introduce themselves to voters in TV ads. So I dug up her introductory ad, from the first time she ran back in 2018. Now the title of this ad is integrity. And this is how it begins.
Abigail Spanberger
Ever since I was a little kid, I always knew I wanted to join the CIA. I would write my diary and coded language, I would play cops and robbers with my sister. I always wanted to be one of the good guys.
Michael Pope
So she wrote her diary and coded language, Professor Farnsworth, what does this tell us about who's Spanberger is and perhaps more importantly, who she wants us to think she is?
Stephen Farnsworth
What you see with Abigail Spanberger is very much a political figure who comes out of the national security community. This is somebody who has been involved in law enforcement throughout much of her career involved in national security throughout much of her career. And her focus in Congress has often been on those issues as well. This makes clearly a lot of sense for her biography. It's where she started as a little kid thinking about what she wanted to be when she grew up. But it's also something that pays off I think, politically, given the fact that there are so many people connected to this environment of the federal government, particularly national security and so on. The district now includes Quantico, it includes a lot of federal workers, a lot of federal retirees who work at the Pentagon within the national security apparatus in one place or another, and of course, more than a few of them in the CIA as well. So it's a it's a way to tell her biography in a way that is very compelling for the constituency that she hopes to represent for the two years.
Thomas Bowman
There's a through thread here is that the national security apparatus, and people tied to it, are used to not being able to get directly involved in politics. And so they have to work with people of both parties in order to accomplish their national security goals. And that explains a lot of Abigail Spanberger's approach to politics.
Michael Pope
It's like a Hatch Act mindset.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And we can get back to that in a minute because we also want to introduce, Yesli Vega. She's a member of the Prince William County Republican Board of Supervisors and a sheriff's deputy. Back in June, she emerged as the winner of a primary with six candidates that included Senator Bryce Reeves. This is how she introduced herself in an ad called conservative fighter.
Yesli Vega
I was leaving church with my family when I received the worst phone call of my life, that my brother had been gunned down and nearly killed by Ms. 13. gang members. I knew then that I would join law enforcement to protect others in need and defend our community.
Thomas Bowman
Dr. Farnsworth, what is this ad tell us about who Vega is and who she wants us to think she is?
Stephen Farnsworth
Well, I think once again, you're looking at a candidate who was really trying to lean in on this national security, law and order segment of the electorate. This is an important issue for a lot of voters. And this is an area where Republicans traditionally have a significant advantage for polls going back decades, you see that more voters trust Republicans to handle questions of security, law and order than Democrats. And so Spanberger represented a different kind of Democrat, when you think about her orientation to national security, compared to a lot of Democrats who run for office. And what Vega is offering is a message that is trying to aim in that same direction.
Michael Pope
So Spanberger is a moderate, we were just talking about that. And she's got an independent streak. If you look at the ranking that this group gov track puts together, they rank her as the 201st most conservative member. Now, keep in mind that the House has 211 Republicans. So she's actually more conservative than 10 Republican members of Congress, including Kevin McCarthy, and Devin Nunez. So she's clearly a moderate. If you look at one of her ads from 2018, titled "Too Partisan," this is how she describes herself.
Abigail Spanberger
Changing Washington means choosing new leaders of both parties. That's why I won't support Nancy Pelosi or Paul Ryan, and it's why it's time for representatives who refuse to work across the aisle, like Congressman Dave Brat, to go.
Michael Pope
So you can say this is a campaign promise that's been kept right like she didn't vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker, and her record in the house has been one of the most bipartisan in the Congress. In fact, the Lugar Center recently ranked her as one of the top five most bipartisan members in the House. And she's the most bipartisan member of the Virginia delegation. Stephen Farnsworth, is this bipartisan nature of her politics... is that a benefit to her on the campaign trail?
Stephen Farnsworth
Well, I'd say it is, and it isn't. On the one hand, she has an ability to reach and connect with the sliver of the electorate that isn't clearly Democratic or Republican. There aren't that many moderates, there aren't that many people undecided in these partisan times. But certainly, she's in a very good position to connect with those kinds of voters. Those voters were part of the reason why she beat Brat who was a very, very partisan, ideological warrior during his time in Congress. And that's how she ended up in Congress in the first place. The reason that I say it isn't it isn't, is because I want to remind people that the key issue in a midterm election is often not whether you can win over swing voters, but whether you can get those truly committed partisans... the people who will absolutely vote for you if they show up, to actually do that. Spanberger was elected in a wave election of 2018, where the people who were really angry about the Donald Trump Presidency, turned out in really large numbers and helped create the Democratic majority of 2018. And again, the Democratic majority of 2020 elections. Well, the question in 2022 is, "Will those people show up?" Will the people who are very, very willing to vote Democratic if they turn out, will they actually do so? Traditionally, midterm elections, they don't turn out as much. But we may be looking at a situation where this will be the third or third high election turnout cycle in a row because, of course, the Supreme Court decision on abortion is going to motivate a lot of voters. And so, well, Spanberger may not have a natural connection to the left on the Democratic side, there may be things out there, like the renewed visibility of Donald Trump, the impeachment--or not the impeachment hearings, but the January 6 Commission hearings--the investigations going on at Mar a Lago, and the of course, the Supreme Court decision that could do a lot of heavy lifting with the Democratic Left for her.
Thomas Bowman
You know, there's that, but I also think that her reputation as a moderate does help her in that it gives her more, it gives her a lot that she can take credit for. So she's also the Vice Chair the problem solvers caucus, which is 29 Republicans in 29 Dems who meet weekly and they try to build coalitions on legislative efforts. And one of those things that they worked on was the bipartisan infrastructure law, which is really going to help improve transportation in this district. And the other thing that she's working on right now, which is kind of a hot topic, is a bill that she's got a bill that prohibits elected members of Congress and their spouses from buying, trading and selling individual stocks, and that's got over 60 cosponsors. So what her moderation lacks in appeal to ideological purists, is more than made up for in the amount of bacon that she can bring home for this district and actually achieve results.
Stephen Farnsworth
Well, I think you're right, I think we're looking at an environment where people are convinced that Congress can't do anything. And so there is a premium, I think, on people who can get something done. And when you look at the issues that you mentioned, Thomas, and I would add to it the the growing capacity of broadband in the rural parts of the district is another area of focus. You can look at someone who is concerned about constituent service. You're looking at someone who is going to focus on issues of great concern to the district, particularly when we think about transportation, whether it's mass transportation, or highway transportation. You're looking at extraordinary pressures on this district, because this is now very much and I-95 suburban commuter district. When you look at the new lines, you can see that almost all the votes are going to be cast by people within 20 miles of I-95. And we all know the time tax that being on 95 involves, and that painful reality, I think is, one of the ways that you can get people to say 'okay, here's somebody who's doing something for me.'
Thomas Bowman
Back in June Axios got its hands on some surreptitiously recorded audio of Vega at a campaign event, sticking her foot in her mouth on the issue of abortion. In the first part of the audio we hear a bit about Vega's experience as a law enforcement officer.
Yesli Vega
The left will say, well what about in cases of rape or incest? I'm a law enforcement officer I became a police officer in 2011. I've worked one case, where as a result of a rape, like a woman became pregnant...
Thomas Bowman
Really...Go on?
Unidentified
Yeah, you were saying you only ran into one instance of pregnancy as a result of rape. And I mean, I've actually heard that it's, it's harder for a woman to get pregnant. Have you heard that?
Yesli Vega
Maybe because there's so much going on in the body? I don't know. I haven't I haven't seen any studies. Yeah. But if I had to, if I'm processing what you're saying, it wouldn't surprise me. Because it's not... it's not something that's happening organically.
Unidentified
Yeah. ...Forcing it and the body shuts down in some way.
Yesli Vega
Yeah. And then the individual, the male is doing it...Quickly.... It's not like, you know... And so I can see why...
Thomas Bowman
All right, well, those comments created a firestorm, as you can imagine, because they're out of step with a lot of the values and beliefs of Virginians on the whole. It also contributed to Fox News, moving this race from toss up to lean Dem, potentially solely due to the fact that Vega is comparatively a weak candidate who just put her foot in her mouth on this specific issue. Dr. Farnsworth, was this a fatal mistake for Yesli Vega?
Stephen Farnsworth
I don't think it was a fatal mistake, but I do think that it would have been better for her campaign if this conversation had not happened or at least had not been recorded. I think that one of the things that you have to recognize as a candidate for office, in terms of politics is that you're playing offense as well as defense. And so there are certain issues, you're going to want to talk about certain issues you're not going to want to talk about. And so if you're a Republican candidate in a suburban districts, the less you say about abortion, the better. The reality is that there are a lot of voters now who are looking at abortion as an issue of much higher salience than used to be the case before the Supreme Court ruling this past spring. If you think about where you are as a politician, you really both of these campaigns are much better off talking about law and order issues than then talking about an issue where public opinion is on the other side. I mean, in the same way that you did not see Spanberger Talk about defunding the police except to object to the Democratic left's argument that something like that should happen. You would be wise, if you were Vega, to talk less about abortion and more about other topics. I mean, every day that the campaign raises this issue, the conversation is not about inflation. It's not about how well or how poorly Biden is doing. But rather, you're playing defense on something that would have been better if the public had not heard you say.
Michael Pope
You mentioned the conversation on defunding the police. And this is an area where the terrain has really changed. Because, you know, obviously, this is going to be one of the central issues in the campaign, but it might not play out the way Vega initially thought it would when she launched her campaign. This is some audio of her appearing on the Ingram Angle on Fox News.
Yesli Vega
We went from being greeted at your local 7-11 while getting coffee [high five] to being demonized, cursed at I mean, you name it. We've seen it all. And you know, we see now based on the polling that the Democrats are trying to backpedal their position on defunding the police and attacking the police, because the polling shows that the American people overwhelmingly reject the idea of getting rid of the police altogether.
Michael Pope
Okay, so factcheck Spanberger has never suggested getting rid of the police and she never supported it. In fact, she has explicitly rejected defund the police multiple times. Nevertheless, Republicans believe this is a winning issue for them. Or, at least, they believed it was a winning issue for them until the FBI had to recover stolen classified documents from Mar a Lago. That prompted Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to call for defunding the FBI. So that's where we are now. Vega also responded to the Mar a Lago search warrant, and she responded with a campaign fundraising email that describe the FBI as the deep state. And she said that the search was for no reason, which prompted Spanberger to say this...
Abigail Spanberger
We continue to see so many of my colleagues... my Republican colleagues and candidates including the one running against me... bashing the FBI, the men and women who work every single day to keep our community safe and to uphold and enforce the rule of law.
Michael Pope
Okay, so file this one in the folder titled didn't say this one coming. Now for the record, Vega says she would not support defunding the FBI. So, you know, just to be clear about this Spanberger does not want to defund the police and Vega does not want to defund the FBI. But nevertheless partisans on both sides are going to make those arguments. Steven Farnsworth will Democrats be able to flip the script here on defund the police by attacking Republicans, in general, and Vega, in particular, as wanting to defund the FBI?
Stephen Farnsworth
Well, I think this is a big problem for Republicans around the country as well as in this district. Because one of the things that the presence of Donald Trump as a dominant voice in the Republican Party has done has forced a lot of Republicans to compromise on their principles in order to stay in the good graces of Trump and Trump supporters. The reality is that Republicans have long talked about support for law enforcement at all levels, local, and state, and national. And they've had to sort of step back from that because of this Mar a Lago situation. I mean, it's important for everyone to recognize that you don't simply read these places, because you feel like it. Law enforcement has to get warrants, they have to prove, to a certain degree with a judge, that there is a compelling reason to go into this private property and take this information. And of course, these warrants are also not only approved by a judge, but they're also very specific in the things that can and cannot be seized. And so there is a law and order process that's taken place with this search warrant like others. And so it becomes a very difficult needle to thread, I think, for Republicans to stay in the good graces of Trump and somehow criticize what the FBI has done, and still claim and make the case to voters, that they are fully backing law enforcement. And this issue is doubly important in this district, because there are so many people who do work for the federal government's law enforcement agencies, not only the FBI and the CIA, but all sorts of other agencies as well. And so you want to be sure that you don't run afoul of federal employees, when you're representing a suburban district.
Thomas Bowman
There's something I find really, almost like an Arrested Development kind of humor about this. Do you know how many times Ms. Vega has voted against funding local police as a member of the Prince William County Board? ...Three times. And she gave two different answers, one, because she didn't want to raise taxes, and two, because the budget didn't include new money for police. So those are obviously mutually exclusive as for reasons why not to support police funding, just generally. And so that's why I kind of find that this script flip is so fascinating here, because Vega actually did vote against funding cops. But also, this issue, in my opinion, really dances around the central issue in this race, and that is "Protecting democracy." Vega is endorsed by several people implicated in a plot to overthrow the United States government. Abigail Spanberger is from the intelligence community. And I think that also explains why those specific people endorsed Vega.
Stephen Farnsworth
Well, I really do think that this is a liability that Trump represents for Republican candidates, they would be much better off sticking to the kind of message that Republicans would have made the case of 10 years ago, where the government should be protected, and they're the people who can do it best rather than the government should be attacked. And it's our allies who have done that. It creates a very difficult environment for Republican candidates. And that's I think, part of the reason why campaigns are having trouble Republican campaigns around the country. Because the sort of things that can get you a republican nomination are exactly the sorts of things that make your post nomination campaign in a general election really difficult. And if you're looking at Trump-endorsed candidates and Senate races around the country, you can see over and over again, the same basic challenge that Vegas is facing here. How do you keep Republicans happy? And how do you stay true to those traditional Republican values, while at the same time continuing to win the support of Donald Trump and his supporters? It's a very difficult balancing act and a lot of people are struggling.
Michael Pope
Alright one more question here about fundraising before we wrap up about the imbalance here. Spanberger has raised more than $5 million. Vega has raised less than a million. So if you look at the cash on hand, spanberger has like $5 million, and Vega has like 300,000. Even if you look at outside groups, outside groups have spent about 2 million to support Spanberger whereas currently, as of as of now, outside groups have spent less than a million to help Vega. Money's not everything, but Dr. Farnsworth, what do you make of the fundraising imbalance here?
Stephen Farnsworth
Well, this is something that the bigger campaign has to work on and work on on right away. Now, it's important to recognize that Spanberger got off to a huge head start here because there was not a Democratic primary. And so she could be spending her time and energy over these last several months raising money and putting a message out, whilst the Vega campaign had to struggle with other Republicans, several of them running against her in a Republican primary. And now that she's the nominee, I imagine some of these gaps will narrow, as Republicans recognize this as a marquee race. It's going to generate a lot of national attention, and they want to make sure that Vega is competitive. And right now, these funding disparities suggest that there's, there's there's there really needs to be a lot done on the Republican side, to bring those numbers up to be more competitive in terms of the fundraising. This is an expensive market to run for Congress, you're talking about Washington television, which is an expensive media thing, a lot of that money is going to be of course wasted, because a significant number of people watching broadcast television, or using social media are actually going to be working in different places than when they where they live. And they're going to be watching television, in Maryland and DC. And those ads are going to be paying for a lot of people who aren't in the district. So there are a lot of challenges that come from this, this race when you think about money. But I think that it's going to be clear that the Republicans are going to invest a great deal more in this race now that there is a nominee. Because the reality is that this is going to be the kind of race that will determine which party controls Congress, if the Republicans are going to win a house majority, they're going to have to win back some of the seats that Democrats picked up in the suburbs in 2018. And again in 2020. And if the Democrats are going to win, why then they're going to have to hang on to districts like Virginia seven. And that's a that's a tall order to and that's why there's going to be so much money in this race, as well as racist like it around the country. If you want to know what's going to the future of America, you have to look to the voters in the suburbs. And nowhere is that more true than the election of 2022.
Thomas Bowman
Well, that's a great place to leave it. Dr. Steven Farnsworth, thank you so much for joining us. It was wonderful to talk to you again.
Stephen Farnsworth
Thanks, guys.
