Sorry, your browser does not support videos.
(Washington) Governor Abigail Spanberger, chosen to respond to the American president on Tuesday during his general policy speech, could embody the strategy of the Democratic opposition, which is seeking how to better exert its influence against Donald Trump.
Published at
A few months before the mid-term elections in the United States, which could reverse the balance of power in November with Donald Trump having had full powers since his return to the White House, it was the new governor of Virginia, 46 years old and freshly elected on a centrist program, who delivered the traditional response of the opposition to the president during the “State of the Union address” in Congress.
“In his speech, the president did what he always does: lie, look for scapegoats, divert attention and offer no concrete solutions to our nation’s challenges,” she said on camera.
However, she asserted in a speech resembling a campaign speech, “Americans deserve leaders who are committed to solving the problems that keep them up at night.”
First female governor of Virginia, elected several times to Parliament, former agent of the CIA – the main American intelligence agency –, this rising star of the Democratic camp ticks all the boxes of the party, which wants to rely on centrist voices, strong personalities and ready to scrap behind the scenes as well as on the ground.
Broaden the base
She was elected last year in a state of more than eight million inhabitants after a pragmatic campaign, focused on the cost of living.
On the ground, “I heard the same pressing concerns everywhere, the excessively high costs of housing, healthcare, energy, childcare…”, she insisted on Tuesday, so many subjects dear to Donald Trump which she does not intend to leave the first to the Republican camp.
This also applies to questions of security and even immigration, a migration policy that she considers “failing” and “needs to be resolved”, while criticizing the brutality of the Trump method.
Unknown to the general public until a few years ago, Abigail Spanberger worked for the CIA in the 2000s, on whose behalf she carried out several missions abroad, some of which were undercover.
She then rose to national prominence in 2018, winning a Virginia district then held by Republicans. She was then re-elected as a deputy before becoming governor.
In this new chair, she established her stature as a politician capable of reaching voters beyond the Democratic base, particularly on economic and national security issues.
His choice could also reflect the direction taken by the Democrats for their long-term strategy: banking on a consensual personality, with controlled communication, rather than on a frontal and ideological opposition, represented for the moment by the icon of the left and new socialist mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, or by the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, one of Donald Trump’s favorite targets.
