Government Shutdown Upends Governor’s Race   – Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy

For more than a half century, it has been the case that Virginia elects a Governor who is from the opposite party as the President elected the year before.

With one exception.

In 2013, the year after Barack Obama’s re-election, Virginians sent Democrat Terry McAuliffe to the Governor’s Mansion.   The background to that should send a chill down the spine of gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger.

As National Review observed, “Democrats are confident that they can work with their allies in the media to blame any shutdown on Republicans….But historically, the public has tended to place the blame on the party that rejects a clean bill and forces a shutdown to make policy demands on issues that aren’t directly related to disagreements over the government spending levels.”

Back in October of 2013, Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to support a budget keeping the government open.  Their demand was to delay or make major changes to the Affordable Care Act in exchange for passing the resolution, disagreements unrelated to differences over funding.  Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Republicans “anarchists” and advocated a hard line against Republicans, declaring, “We will not go to conference with a gun at our heads.”  

Reid convinced then-President Obama not to meet with Republicans, and on the morning of October 1, Obama declared, “One faction, of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government, shut down major parts of the government – all because they didn’t like one law.”

Starting to sound familiar? Today, however, it is congressional Democrats who are trying to tack on a $1.5 trillion laundry list (that’s $4,600 for each man, woman and child in the United States, folks!) of additional demands, including permanent extensions of “temporary” Covid-era health subsidies (created to help cover skyrocketing premiums caused by the Affordable Health Care Act in the first place). In addition to that, Senate Democrats seek a reversal of Medicaid provisions passed less than three months ago requiring verification of recipient addresses and able-bodied enrollees to work or volunteer part-time.  

All of these are new, last-minute additions from progressives and not even related to the funding bill. These are also measures without the votes to pass on their own merits, so are merely bargaining chips for the Left in exchange for opening the rest of the federal government.

For those with long memories, Obama’s words from 2013 must echo back at them:  “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you’re supposed to be doing anyway, or just because there’s a law there that you don’t like.”

But that is, in fact, what this is.  Without the support of 60 senators, any such funding is subject to a filibuster and doomed to defeat. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he’s open to negotiating some of this, but not if the government is being held “hostage.”

Certainly, keeping the government open has widespread support.  Passing a clean continuing resolution is supported by veterans, small business owners, the tourist industry, police, and grocers.  That’s a pretty broad electoral constituency.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is so far having none of it.  Back in 2013, he declared “… we are happy to discuss how to fund the government, but not with a gun to our heads.  You are not going to get us to give in to extortion.”  Now, he leads the extortion mob.

It may be that he is being pushed by the leftward driveof his party’s rank and file.  Or it may be his concerns are closer to home, where Schumer faces losing a probable primary challenge from Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.  For Schumer, self-preservation is eclipsing the public good.

Whatever the reason, it sounds a lot like … “one faction, of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government” throwing a hissy-fit because they’re not getting what they want.  In 2013, that was Republicans.  In 2025, it is Democrats.

Which brings us to the Virginia gubernatorial election.  The last time the government shut down just weeks before Virginians went to the polls, it had a devastating effect on the Republican candidate.  According to The Washington Post’s October 28 poll of that year, more than 80 percent of voters opposed the shutdown and 55 percent said the shutdown was important to them. In the poll, voters backed Democrat Terry McAuliffe over Republican Ken Cuccinelli by a two-to-one margin. Momentum for McAuliffe accelerated.

While that gap closed considerably by Election Day, much of that narrowing likely came because federal workers were concentrated in Northern Virginia, which by then was already reliably voting Democratic.  A shutdown blamed on Republicans merely affirmed the way those voters were already voting.

Abigail Spanberger has no such luxury:  A lengthy shutdown resulting from Democratic insistence on shutting down the government will clearly affect a large portion of the 321,000 civilian employees in Virginia, not to mention federal contractors, their relatives and those they buy from.  Many of them might otherwise be inclined to support Spanberger, but their enthusiasm would certainly drop significantly if her party is blamed for long weeks without a paycheck.

Two Democratic Senators and Independent Angus King, seem to understand this.  Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who voted “yes,” warned that closing the government while two hurricanes hovered off the East Coast made no sense, asking, “Why would you even have that conversation right now?”  

Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both former Governors, voted to shut the federal government.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle Sears is supporting a clean bill, noting that “a government shutdown would inflict severe consequences on the American people that are completely avoidable,” and hitting news shows and social media to make the case.

Spanberger, meanwhile, has pivoted to blame it all on the President for threatening a reduction in force – discretionary power he could not claim if Democratic Senators hadn’t allowed funding to lapse in the first place.  She has remained quiet on the one thing that would allow the funding bill to move forward:  For Senate Democrats – including Kaine and Warner — to re-open the federal government.

This morning’s Washington Post warns that “Progressives … are urging their party in a dangerous direction.”  By failing to urge her fellow Democrats to end the shutdown, Ms. Spanberger is marching lockstep in the same direction.

Chris Braunlich is a senior advisor and former president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.  He may be reached at chris@thomasjeffersoninst.org.