In Virginia gov race, Abigail Spanberger exposes Dems woke weakness

The off-year governor’s election in purple Virginia is almost always a win for the party that doesn’t hold the White House, but this year the race is showing how much Democrats have refused to learn their lessons from their massive culture-war losses of 2024.The battle in the Old Dominion has all the hallmarks of Democrats’ White House defeat in November.An uninspiring political-insider candidate, hand-picked by the party establishment, is running a campaign that relies on hype from friendly media.She’s dodging questions about hot-button cultural issues — including trans athletes in school sports and men in girls’ dressing rooms — and betting she can coast to victory on resistance-fueled backlash to President Donald Trump.A month ago, Democrat and ex-CIA spy Abigail Spanberger’s lackluster basement campaign was chugging along, spending big money on a plethora of ads slamming her opponent, Republican Lt.Gov.

Winsome Earle-Sears, as too conservative for the state.Earle-Sears, a Marine Corps veteran, rode strong support from the Republican grassroots to become Virginia’s first female lieutenant governor and first woman of color elected statewide.Thanks in part to a massive spending gap, Spanberger built up a double-digit polling lead over the summer; many in the GOP wrote off the race as lost.But in recent weeks she’s stumbled badly over the case of Richard Cox, a biological man claiming transgender status who’s exploited local “bathroom laws” to repeatedly expose himself to women and children in Northern Virginia locker rooms.Fairfax County police say they have no intention of charging Cox with any crime, despite public outrage — and even though his phone reportedly contained both child porn and a schedule tracking children’s swim classes.This should be easy for a politician with any common sense to condemn.Instead, Spanberger has dodged.When local reporter Nick Minock asked her a yes-or-no question on the topic — “Do you support bio...