The Virginia General Assembly swore in a new delegation of representatives Jan. 9. For the first time in four years, Democrats entered the upcoming legislative session with a governmental trifecta, controlling the House of Delegates, Senate and the Governor’s Mansion. With this power, some are salivating at the idea of overthrowing decades of Virginia law and ramming through sweeping economic and social agenda items, absent any Republican resistance. Consequently, Democrats risk colossally misinterpreting the 2025 election as a broad mandate for these sweeping policies. If Democrats are serious about governing Virginia, they need to temper their chimeric eagerness to build Rome in a day and stick to sensible policies that are proven effective.
As it stands, many Democrats appear anxious to jump the gun. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, for example, has floated the repeal of Virginia’s longstanding right-to-work law — a statute that has remained materially unchanged since 1947. In the past two years, the Democrat-controlled General Assembly has passed a tsunami of legislation increasing the size of Virginia’s bureaucracy, strangling business and impinging on the Second Amendment. The only impediment that stood between Virginians and this progressive avalanche was Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s veto power, which he wielded more aggressively than any governor in decades. With Youngkin out of office, that important firewall disappears, and many of those vetoed proposals now risk inflicting tangible economic, budgetary and social damage.
While Democrats may have the votes to impose such an agenda, they do not have a mandate to do so — not in the way that legislative mandates are ordinarily understood. 2025 was a unique and likely non-replicable case fueled by the Trump Administration’s unpopularity and the chaos that currently engulfs Washington. The prolonged government shutdown, which saw over 600,000 federal workers — most of them Virginia residents — furloughed, combined with the Department of Government Efficiency-led mass firings, ignited the perfect storm of disillusioned Virginia voters. Republicans in Washington made an enemy out of much of Virginia, and the voters punished them for it. However, these are not ordinary circumstances.
With the turmoil at the federal level dominating much of the 2025 campaign, voters did not cast their ballot with an appetite for statewide left-wing activism — they cast their ballot hoping for some semblance of normalcy. Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger ran on a platform of pragmatism and moderation rather than hardline ideological pandering. This is quintessential Virginia politics. Just as Youngkin was elected in 2021 due in large part to President Biden’s floundering leadership, the rationale behind Spanberger’s victory supplies a powerfully simple indication of what the 2025 election was about — that voters are generally averse to serious political upheaval.
Despite these political signals, such upheaval seems to be exactly the direction that some Virginia Democrats want to steer. While many of the Democrats’ legislative and policy aspirations are conventional liberal agenda items such as loosening abortion restrictions and enshrining a right to same-sex marriage, other proposals are downright ridiculous. Some of these more outlandish ideas include a full ban on internal combustion vehicle sales by 2035, mirroring California and putting about 90 percent of the Virginia car industry out of business.
Another is a sales tax increase on every basic service imaginable — from dry cleaning to automotive engine repairs, no consumer is safe from state tax collectors. These new taxes would dramatically increase the cost of everyday living expenses and substantially intensify economic hardship for working families. This would not only be an atrocious policy failure, but a complete betrayal of the voters, whose primary concern in the 2025 election was the cost of living. Democrats should be focused on alleviating high prices, not driving up the cost of doing laundry.
Unfortunately, in politics, common sense is an increasingly uncommon virtue. It would be a violation of such common sense to bludgeon Virginians with an economically illiterate sledgehammer at the very moment when so many are already struggling. With stability at the federal level quickly deteriorating, Democrats in Virginia have a generational opportunity to juxtapose their policies with national Republicans. They should not squander this critical chance by pivoting leftward and alienating the broad majority of Virginians whose principal demand is little more than effective, competent management.
Despite Spanberger’s landslide victory, Youngkin is still relatively popular, signaling that Virginia voters’ grievances lie primarily with the Republican Party nationally and not necessarily with the Youngkin Administration. In fact, Youngkin’s economic policies reflect precisely the stable conservative approach that Congressional Republicans have seemingly abandoned. Virginia’s economy continues to post robust economic output and has attracted an influx of investment. Virginia has been so well-managed, in fact, that the 2025 fiscal year budget surplus was large enough to fund the Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance program, a state-run emergency replacement for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits that were left temporarily unfunded during the government shutdown. When Youngkin leaves the Governor’s Mansion, Virginia will be in a strong fiscal position. Virginia Democrats should understand that maintaining that strong fiscal position is imperative to Virginia’s future.
State politics have sometimes avoided the toxic pitfalls that beget national politics. Yet, with partisans playing an increasing role in political discourse, there grows an alarming temptation to pander to the fringes of political society. Policies that reflect such pandering are rarely successful — with their high taxes and skyrocketing prices, California and other states led by entrenched Democrat supermajorities exemplify this fact. Virginia cannot afford to capitulate to these models. Spanberger, to her credit, appears to be moving in the opposite direction, pushing for sharp tax reductions in an attempt to stabilize the cost of living. If this is the direction that Virginia Democrats take moving forward, it will indisputably be a winning message.
2026 presents an opportunity for Democrats to display to Virginians that they know how to govern rather than grandstand, contrasting themselves with Washington and sending a clear message for the midterms. If Democrats balk at this opportunity, however, everyone will feel the consequences.
Joshua Hawkins is an opinion columnist who writes about politics for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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