After Abigail Spanberger’s landslide election win in Virginia last November, she’d hoped to govern as she’d campaigned — rising above the partisan fray and focused on affordability.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

She alienated the right early on by joining the national battle over gerrymandering that Republicans kicked off (after initially saying she wouldn’t), endorsing a map that would favor Democrats in 10 of Virginia’s 11 US House districts. It passed as a ballot measure, but was tossed out by the state’s highest court. 

Additionally, when some enthusiastic Democrats in the legislature proposed a litany of new taxes and fees, Fox News rounded them up and the story caused a sensation as Republicans accused her of abandoning her focus on costs — even though Spanberger hadn’t endorsed any of those ideas.

So lately, the governor has tried to reestablish her moderate credentials — by saying no to Democrats in the legislature, with her veto.

In recent weeks, Spanberger vetoed major bills on retail marijuana sales, collective bargaining for state and local government workers, class action lawsuits, prescription drug prices, gambling, criminal justice reform, and more.

For that, she’s been met with fury from the left — denounced as a sellout betraying progressive causes. And with further battles over the state’s budget ahead, her relationships with key figures in the legislature have gotten worse.

To her critics, Spanberger is squandering what could be a short-lived opportunity for much-needed major change. To her defenders, she’s trying to make center-left governance actually work — preventing progressives from going too far in ways that would lead to poor governance and voter backlash in a state that is not quite solidly blue.

It’s a preview of challenges other states might face next year if a blue wave creates more new Democratic trifectas — and at the national level in 2029 if Democrats take the White House and Congress. 

While Spanberger faces some Virginia-specific hurdles, her broader dilemma is a familiar one. Is it possible to play procedural hardball without angering the middle? When the base wants to pass the whole progressive agenda all at once, when should a governor or president push back? And if you’re already taking on fire from the right, can you afford to have the left mad at you too?

The governor’s dilemma

The early controversies and criticism from the right took a toll on Spanberger’s approval rating.

At the heart of it was the redistricting referendum, which required her to commit to what was by definition a partisan crusade — its only purpose was to hand Democrats seats, to make up for Republican redistricting gains elsewhere.

Though she had won election by a 15-point margin, by early April, Spanberger’s approval rating was down to 47 percent — and her disapproval was 46 percent. Her honeymoon had ended.

That was about the time she had to decide what to do with the 1,156 bills the legislature had sent her by the close of its session. During that session, Spanberger was “little seen or heard,” Virginia Mercury columnist Bob Lewis wrote. 

This wasn’t entirely surprising: The legislature was used to taking the lead. In Virginia, governors are prohibited from running for reelection, making them instant lame ducks. “The joke in the legislature is, you don’t like the governor, just wait a couple minutes,” Richard Meagher, a political scientist at Randolph-Macon College, told me.

Powerful figures like L. Louise Lucas, the state senate president pro tempore and finance committee chair, call the shots. The 82-year old Lucas has served in the legislature for more than three decades; she’s recently gained national attention for her partisan combativeness and spicy social media presence. (When Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine raised concerns about her redistricting plans, she said their complaints were “coming from a cuck chair in the corner”).

After four years under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Democrats had a long list of things they wanted to do with their newfound control of state government — an agenda that amounted to bold progressive change, as well as the procedural hardball of the redistricting effort (since blocked in court).

Spanberger signed the vast majority of the bills sent to her into law — including measures on the minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, gun control, and reproductive rights.

But on other key measures, she balked.

What the governor vetoed

There were some bills that Spanberger flatly vetoed — such as on gambling, criminal justice reform, and a new fee on mattress sales to fund mattress recycling.

On other bills, she took a different tack — initially proposing major amendments to what the legislature had passed, and only vetoing when the legislature rejected her suggestions. Here, she said, she remains committed to the goals of these proposals — but she simply believes the bills as written will work out poorly, and wants changes.

For Democrats’ long-awaited bill to legalize retail marijuana sales (recreational use was legalized in 2021), Spanberger wanted to add new tough penalties for public consumption and possession of large amounts. Her critics viewed this as a poison pill designed to kill the bill, since progressives in the legislature were ill-inclined toward making drug laws harsher.

For labor’s prized bill to let state and local government employees collectively bargain, Spanberger proposed delaying implementation for local government employees until 2030 — when, notably, she’d be out of office. (Some local governments had complained that, if the original bill passed, workers could negotiate higher compensation and squeeze their limited budgets.)

And for a bill creating a process to let people file class action lawsuits in Virginia (they’re one of just two states that has no formal procedure for that), Spanberger proposed limiting the bill to a few cities and Fairfax County, and giving judges a way to dismiss such lawsuits earlier.

There are a few common themes in her vetoes. She’s sensitive to perceptions that the Democratic Party is soft on crime or disorder — or that it’s too eager to impose new taxes. 

Another concern is keeping businesses feeling good about the state. Virginia political analyst Bob Holsworth told me that the state’s politicians have long cared deeply about national ratings of their business climate, such as CNBC’s. Virginia often ranks No. 1 on such surveys (though they dropped to fourth last year).

To explain Spanberger’s veto of a prescription drug pricing board, for instance, Holsworth pointed toward recent investments by companies like AstraZeneca in bringing drug manufacturing facilities to Virginia.

Here too, there are echoes of Democratic tensions in other states: In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has found himself in a standoff with ultra-wealthy residents threatening to leave or abandon planned investments over his tax-the-rich proposals. In California, Democrats are divided over a proposed wealth tax that’s generating the same concerns and influencing the governor’s race. And more leaders could find themselves in similar positions as they try to manage their base’s populist backlash against the rich while trying to attract businesses and grow their tax base to accommodate new spending.

Data centers and bad blood

The business climate is a major factor in another huge fight currently splitting Spanberger from progressives — data centers.

Lucas, the senate finance committee chair, wants to eliminate tax incentives for data centers, and rely heavily on this for revenue in the state’s budget (which must be settled by June 30). But Spanberger argues that ending those tax breaks would effectively mean breaking a promise to businesses who chose to build in Virginia.

“Lucas came up with an issue that is really problematic for the Democrats, because on one hand you’re talking about a tax exemption that goes to the richest people in the world,” Holsworth said. “And then on the other hand, if the rug gets pulled out from under this exemption, Virginia’s rating among the best states for doing business in the country goes flying down.”

With data centers drawing populist opposition at the local, state, and federal level, and a broader AI backlash simmering in some corners of the left, other Democrats are likely to face these challenges as well. In April, Maine governor Janet Mills vetoed a proposed moratorium on data centers over concerns it would penalize a project that had already been planned. 

As the battle over the budget stretches on, tensions between Spanberger and legislators have risen. Many of them view her as blindsiding them with her vetoes, and failing to engage in the process early enough. 

Meanwhile, the relationship with Lucas keeps worsening. An interview this week in which Spanberger said the legislature might not respect her due to sexism didn’t go over well. 

“You have gotta be kidding me!” Lucas posted on X Wednesday. “There is a record number of women in the GA and four of them are in leadership and a woman LG, yet you think this is all about you! Okay, you thought it to be a great idea but just remember, you started this mess!”

There’s bad blood behind the scenes too. In February, Spanberger’s chief of staff filed a defamation lawsuit against a longtime adviser to Lucas, claiming he was spreading scurrilous rumors about her.

But being at odds with Lucas could be risky. “Lucas has a little bit of the mob boss in her — which endears her to a lot of Democrats in the commonwealth,” said Meagher, the Randolph-Macon college political scientist. “Democratic voters, particularly when they look at the national leadership, are tired of tepid, moderate, mealy-mouthed leaders.”

Meanwhile, Lucas’s national profile could soon get bigger. Last month, the FBI searched her office and a marijuana dispensary she owns. Sources told the New York Times that the search stemmed from a corruption and bribery investigation opened during the Biden administration. Lucas has positioned herself as a victim of Trump’s retribution crusade, claiming, “I am not backing down.”

Other Democrats will face similar challenges

In theory, Spanberger is trying to appeal to her state’s median voter. But in between elections, the median voter is often disengaged and turned out. The loudest voices are partisans and ideologues; which leaves her with a right that’s already turned against her and a left that’s turning on her too.

And while some of Spanberger’s challenges are unique to her state, other incoming Democratic governors — or the next Democratic president — could soon find themselves in similar situations.

The party’s base and interest groups will demand a wish list of progressive agenda items they’ve long dreamed of passing, as well as hardball procedural moves to help counter perceived foul play on the right.

Picture a Democrat being sworn in as president with congressional majorities in 2029, and immediately being swamped with demands for filibuster abolition (which would uncork even more long-deferred legislative priorities) and court-packing. Meanwhile, activists are pushing for major new spending programs even as the deficit and national debt are worsening.

The executive will be the one tasked with weighing all the associated political and practical tradeoffs — and deciding when to say no. If Spanberger’s experience is any indication, there won’t be any easy answers waiting for them. 

If you’re looking for insights into why Democrats lost in 2024, you won’t find many in the DNC’s disavowed “autopsy,” which was released after much pressure Thursday. The incomplete and error-ridden report, written by a friend of DNC chair Ken Martin, offers various takes on the election but little convincing evidence, and avoids many contentious issues entirely, like immigration and Israel.

There haven’t really been any dramatic attempts by Democrats to change their party brand going forward, either. There’s been no policy platform like Newt Gingrich’s 1994 “Contract with America” to guide candidates around the country. Disparate primary battles haven’t congealed into a nationwide movement like the 2010 Tea Party. Nor has there been a high-profile push from party leaders for Democrats to repudiate Joe Biden’s unpopular record, and mostly the same people are in charge.

But behind closed doors, among Democratic elites, a reckoning has indeed taken place — and a quiet consensus about at least part of the path forward has emerged.

The most obvious midterm plan is a laser focus on affordability and on criticizing President Donald Trump, evident in campaigns across the country. Leftists like Zohran Mamdani and party leaders like Hakeem Jeffries agree that talking about cost-of-living issues is their best approach, even if they have different variations on that message and the policies they’re recommending.

Then, more subtly, Democrats have also recalibrated on various other issues where many in the party believe they’d gotten too far out of sync with mainstream voters over the past decade — most notably, border security, crime, climate change, and identity issues. 

But the recalibration typically hasn’t involved messy scenes where Democrats throw these constituencies under the bus. Instead, it’s played out with candidates quietly backing away from or downplaying stances now viewed as excessively reminiscent of the “Peak Woke” years — in hopes those issues are simply less relevant.

Mamdani, for example, repudiated his old rhetoric calling police “racist” during his mayoral race. In Texas, James Talarico responded to an old clip touting his prior campaign’s “non-meat” policy with a picture of him chowing on a turkey leg. And in Virginia last year, Abigail Spanberger stayed vague regarding school policies on trans students, bathrooms, and sports, evading her opponent’s efforts to pin her down on the topic.

This more restrained approach to changing the party’s image may well pay off in the midterms, which are typically more of a referendum on the incumbent president. But skeptics question whether more should be done to improve Democrats’ standing, both for the midterms and subsequent elections.

“There’s nothing that has really been done to forcefully move away from what everyone broadly agrees to have been a series of pretty catastrophic mistakes,” Lakshya Jain, pollster and data director for the liberal publication The Argument, told me. “Instead, the idea is, let’s let the shifting issue environment save us.”

Democrats’ quiet consensus

Immediately after Kamala Harris lost in 2024, a heated debate erupted over whether she and the party had generally moved too far left on key issues and gotten out of step with what mainstream voters believed.

A year and a half later, my conversations with people in and around Democratic Party politics suggest there’s a widespread agreement that they had.

“I’ve been on the conference circuit basically since the beginning of March, and you can just sense it,” Tré Easton, a vice president of the center-left Searchlight Institute think tank, told me. “People — not just moderates, but normie Democrats — are understanding that the thing we were doing in 2024, which led to us losing the popular vote for the first time in 20 years, we can’t do that again.”

Indeed, among party elites, there’s a widespread belief that Democrats need to be more solicitous of the median voter — rather than the progressive activists and nonprofit groups who were so influential in the party over the past decade.

These beliefs include:

• that the public wants a secure border and dislikes both the chaos of the Biden years, and the brutal tactics of the Trump years;
• that the public badly wants low energy prices — so climate change should get less emphasis in campaign messaging;
• and that, culturally, progressives got out of step with the median voter during the “Great Awokening” years on issues related to race, gender, and sexuality. 

“The big lesson which we’ve had to relearn is not to get caught in these culture wars,” Elaine Kamarck, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who’s long been deeply involved in Democratic party politics, told me. “But I think there’s a lot more discipline this time.”

But there’s been no bitter break with progressives — rather, these changes have unfolded as more of a “vibe shift,” as Democratic elites and politicians move to a new consensus about how to act. 

Activist groups have been relatively muted as Democrats have changed their rhetoric on these issues. Intense factional controversy is fiercest on the topic of Israel, where the party has been moving to the left, and so has the median voter. How far to go when it comes to reining in ICE — or abolishing it entirely — is a matter of dispute. But while there are some substantive disagreements between Democrats on various social and economic issues, there hasn’t been anything like a party civil war.

Furthermore, despite their anti-establishment mood, most Democratic base voters seem to be on board with some concessions to public opinion after 2024. A New York Times/Siena poll this month asked Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents whether the party should move to the center or the left to win in 2028. Fifty-two percent said move to the center, compared to only 25 percent who wanted to move to the left. (Eighteen percent said to stay where they are.) 

But have they done enough?

While there’s broad agreement that the party is well-positioned for the midterms due to Trump’s sinking approval numbers, skeptics from the moderate wing question how much has really changed — and whether this consensus can really survive in the longer term.

“The Biden administration said they were going to put racial equity at the center of everything the federal government does,” said Matt Yglesias, a former Vox colleague who has vocally argued that the Democratic Party should moderate on the issues. “I haven’t heard anything like that from a Democrat in years. But is that just that they’ve learned to keep this stuff quiet? Or have they actually changed their views on things?”

Easton of the Searchlight Institute also thought more needed to be done. “The Democratic Party does not have an energy policy or an immigration policy right now, and that is not sustainable,” he said. “In part, that’s because we don’t have a national leader to dictate what that is. But also, we still have the groups who are trying to hold onto the policy consensus that held for the past decade or so.”

The reality, though, is that wrenching intra-party debate is painful and risky, and Democrats are temperamentally inclined to seek consensus behind closed doors instead of having it out in public. 

And one problem for the moderates advocating for further moderation is that, if Democrats romp in 2026, the current cautious approach will be vindicated.

“To me, the risk is reaching the conclusion that they’ve done enough,” Yglesias said. 

For instance, in the Senate, candidates like Talarico are potentially putting certain red states in play amidst a terrible environment for Republicans this year. But the geography of the Senate is quite challenging for Democrats over the longer term, because, Yglesias argued, of the party’s “cultural positioning is outside the Overton Window” in many red states — that is, they’re still too far left for those states’ voters.

Then there’s the presidency. “I don’t think a single Democrat or swing voter can tell you what [Michigan senator and potential 2028 presidential candidate] Elissa Slotkin is different from Joe Biden on,” Jain said. “I don’t think there’s a plan to address that. I do think that will decrease the marginal odds of winning.”

But, Jain also told me, he thought that if Trump’s approval remains this low in 2028, Democrats’ odds will be quite good. “There’s no precedent for the incumbent presidential party winning an election when their president is at 37 percent. So even if the Democrats don’t do anything — it might be enough to win.”

Graham Platner’s primary victory in Maine means Democrats officially have their candidate in a race that is pivotal for their hopes of retaking the Senate.

But Platner isn’t a typical Democratic nominee. For reasons both personal and political, his candidacy has captivated national attention and become arguably the most-covered race happening this year.

That’s because Graham Platner is many things, and many people beyond just Maine have strong opinions about those things.

First off, he is indisputably a fresh (bearded) face for the party — a 41-year-old populist who’s never run for anything before, who’s worked as an oyster farmer, who did three tours in Iraq with the Marines and also served in Afghanistan, and who presents as having a tough-guy affect. There are complications to Platner’s working-class credentials (he attended prep school and has relied on wealthy parents), but still, if he does well in November, it could strengthen the case for more outsiders who don’t fit the typical candidate mold.

Simultaneously, Platner is a player in a bitter factional struggle inside the Democratic Party, where he’s aligned with a left socialist faction that is trying to supplant the existing establishment. Many of the stronger opinions about him from national figures, pro and con, come from people on either side of that struggle. 

And finally, there’s his messy personal history — Nazi skull tattoo, crude Reddit posts, volatile past relationships, drinking, and sexting other women while married. A fresh round of these reports in recent weeks has heightened Democrats’ fears about his general election chances — and even opened discussion about whether he could still be replaced on the ballot if more damning scandals emerge.

Amid a year where President Donald Trump is very unpopular and a national blue wave is rising, the basic partisan stakes for Senate control could well prove more important than any of these candidate-specific factors. 

Yet the intense interest in Platner means his performance could have real ramifications for politics going forward — for Democrats’ factional battle, for what types of candidates get recruited to run, and for which scandals are really disqualifying for office nowadays.

Platner, the left factionalist and outsider populist

The Platner candidacy came about because several leftist operatives and organizers recruited him into the race and are running his campaign. Fans of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and democratic socialism, they want a hard-edged anti-oligarchy class politics, and they view mainstream Democrats as ineffective stuffed-shirt stooges. In recent years, opposition to Israel has risen to the top of their priorities as well.

Over the past decade, this left faction has powered Sanders to two second-place presidential primary campaigns, brought “The Squad” to the House of Representatives, and elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — whose top strategist, Morris Katz, is also Platner’s. They’ve also helped pull the Democratic Party in their direction generally on the issues, including on Israel.

What they haven’t really done is beat a formidable Republican in a high-profile general election — like this one, against five-term Sen. Susan Collins. And these activists’ choice of an inexperienced outsider in Platner cuts against the conventional wisdom of who can win such a race. 

Party leaders prefer to nominate credentialed politicians with a proven track record of electoral success. That’s what they’ve done in other key Senate races like North Carolina, Ohio, and Alaska. And that’s what they tried to do in Maine, by actively recruiting two-term Gov. Janet Mills to run — but the race got away from them.

Mills was a 78-year-old two-term governor whose popularity had been dropping and who ran a low-energy campaign after waffling for months on whether to run. Platner was nearly four decades younger, an outsider, and promising to take on both parties’ establishments. There were elements of class and gender politics to his perceived appeal, too — there’s been much handwringing in recent years about whether Democrats have lost the ability to connect with the working class and with men generally.

Platner’s campaign caught fire, becoming a viral phenomenon, and he amassed such a polling lead that Mills suspended her campaign in April, making Tuesday’s primary largely a formality. 

He clearly struck a chord with Maine Democratic voters, going beyond his core of support among the pro-Bernie base. 

“He’s taken stances on the far left of the party, but I think even more important than that has been his persona and the approach,” Mark Brewer, a political scientist at the University of Maine, told me. “He’s anti-establishment, he’s not politics as usual, he’s going to take a sledgehammer to the establishment. I think for a lot of Democrats in Maine, and nationwide, that’s the kind of mood they’re in.”

Platner’s messy personal history is spurring some worry about his chances

Yet the latest round of Platner scandal coverage in recent weeks has also called attention to some risks of nominating a little-known outsider — and has spurred some finger-pointing by Democrats at the left activists who, they fear, have risked blowing a very winnable election.

Platner survived the first round of such scandals late last year, about his tattoo — an image of a skull and crossbones used by Nazis — and crude Reddit posts. He claimed he wasn’t aware the tattoo was a Nazi symbol, but admitted having a flawed past and argued that he’d changed after overcoming a dark period of PTSD. 

His critics argued that the tattoo should be, on its face, disqualifying and expressed skepticism that he only discovered its meaning late last year; defenders argued that his lengthy anonymous posting history didn’t include any signs of Nazi sympathies. More broadly, many Platner supporters have argued that the party needs to tolerate messier biographies if they want candidates who can connect with ordinary people. 

As Mills’s departure from the race indicated, Democratic primary voters initially seemed inclined to accept Platner’s explanation. But more recent reports again revived debates over his character and electability: The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Platner’s wife had discovered sexually explicit texts with other women on his phone just last year — not exactly the distant past. She has stood by Platner and said they worked through issues in their marriage.

Soon afterward came the New York Times report about what the paper deemed his “unsettling” behavior in certain past relationships — such as sexist comments and, one ex alleged, twisting her arm and trapping her in a room during an argument. (Platner has denied this and said the ex’s allegations are politically motivated; she has worked for conservative political groups.)

Naturally, there are fears among Democrats that something worse might emerge — memories of Eric Swalwell’s swift exit from the California governor’s primary after several women accused him of sexual misconduct are still fresh.

But, so far, the allegations against Platner haven’t risen to that level, and Platner’s prominent endorsers, like Sanders, have stood by him. (“There are no saints in the United States Senate,” Sanders said Monday, maintaining that Platner had “the guts to take on the big money that is dominating the country.”) And while Mills noted ahead of Tuesday’s election that she was still on the ballot, she declined to officially restart her campaign. 

Even if party leaders wanted to force him out, it’s hard to see how they could — he owes nothing to them. Only a collapse of his support among Maine voters could potentially spur that, and limited early polling shows a tightening race but not a decisive turn against him. 

If Platner in fact ends up losing this race — and especially if Democrats fail to take the Senate because of it — party leaders will blame left factionalists, and argue they should be permanently discredited. (Just check the X feed of Neera Tanden, a high-level figure in several Democratic administrations, who has lately responded to bad Platner news by pointing fingers at the activists who recruited him into the race.) More generally, primary voters might again grow more skittish about nominating unusual, untested, or controversial candidates in battleground contests.

Conversely, if Platner wins, it will be another triumph for the upstart faction that is trying to reshape the Democratic Party — and another sign that traditionally credentialed, established Democratic candidates need to watch their backs.