‘They have to focus on delivering’: Abigail Spanberger urges Democrats to unite on affordability

{"text":[[{"start":10.48,"text":"Democrats must unite to address voter anxiety about affordability ahead of November’s midterm elections, Virginia’s governor has said, as she brushed aside suggestions of a civil war in her party."}],[{"start":21.82,"text":"In a wide-ranging interview with the FT on Wednesday, Abigail Spanberger said Democrats needed to project a strong contrast between their party and Donald Trump and the Republicans heading into November."}],[{"start":33.56,"text":"“The task before anyone who is now the [Democratic] nominee in their state, whether it is a Senate nominee in Michigan or any of our House nominees in Virginia, is that they have to focus on delivering for people,” Spanberger said. “Telling them . . . I am focused on the things that matter to you, and this is what I am going to do about the things that impact your life.”"}],[{"start":53.92,"text":"“It is not a question of the contrast within different types of Democrats,” she added. “The question is: How are they working on the things that matter to people that frankly the White House and current members of Congress . . . are not focused on?”"}],[{"start":67.32,"text":"Spanberger spoke to the FT the day after Democratic primary voters went to the polls in five states, including Virginia and Michigan."}],[{"start":75.32,"text":"Hours earlier, Michigan’s insurgent progressive Abdul El-Sayed had sent shockwaves throughout the Democratic Party establishment when he narrowly defeated four-term centrist congresswoman Haley Stevens, who had been endorsed by party heavyweight Senator Chuck Schumer and Michigan’s popular Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, among others."}],[{"start":95.24,"text":"El-Sayed was the latest in a series of progressive challengers to defeat more moderate incumbents, after a slate of candidates endorsed by New York mayor Zohran Mamdani won their congressional primaries in the city earlier in the summer."}],[{"start":108.52,"text":"Spanberger, a political moderate, famously dressed down fellow Democrats after the 2020 election when the party lost more than a dozen seats in Congress, blaming the party’s embrace of “defund the police” and left-leaning economic policies."}],[{"start":122.88,"text":"“We need to not ever use the word socialist or socialism ever again,” the then congresswoman said at the time in a leaked audio recording. “Because while people think it doesn’t matter, it does matter.”"}],[{"start":135.54,"text":"On Wednesday, Spanberger dismissed suggestions that left-leaning candidates such as El-Sayed represented the future of the Democratic Party, noting that she and several other centrist Democratic candidates had also won decisive victories in the past 12 months."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":151.12,"text":"Last November, she was elected Virginia governor by a historic 15-point margin, running roughly nine points ahead of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign in the state just one year earlier."}],[{"start":162.68,"text":"In the same month, Spanberger’s former roommate on Capitol Hill, Mikie Sherrill, also outperformed expectations and won New Jersey’s governorship by a margin of more than 14 points."}],[{"start":173.72,"text":"“I don’t actually think that we should be saying any one thing is the future of the party,” Spanberger said, adding: “We have to win, and we have to win big in November.”"}],[{"start":183.64,"text":"Ahead of the midterms, Trump and Republicans have rushed to tie Democratic candidates to the more fringe policy positions of the Democratic Socialists of America, a leftist group that has endorsed several insurgent progressives."}],[{"start":196.36,"text":"El-Sayed was not endorsed by the DSA but had the support of democratic socialist lawmakers, including Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."}],[{"start":207.96,"text":"Spanberger rejected the Republicans’ accusations and said individual Democratic candidates had a responsibility to tell voters where they stand on the issues."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":216.28,"text":"“It is only a challenge if you allow [Republicans] to paint everybody with the same paintbrush,” Spanberger said. “Any [Democratic] candidate who is running, if somebody is trying to turn you into something that you are not, tell people who you are, and also tell people who you are not.”"}],[{"start":232,"text":"Still, the governor acknowledged that she and fellow Democrats faced political challenges. While Trump is battling record-low approval ratings, national opinion polls also show approval for the Democratic Party has plunged to new lows."}],[{"start":244.4,"text":"“The problem is that people don’t necessarily know: What is the Democratic Party?” Spanberger told the FT. “Conversely, the Republican Party is Donald Trump. The Democratic Party is a broad array of people.”"}],[{"start":256.4,"text":"Spanberger urged fellow Democrats to tell voters that their party “focuses on the needs of people” but acknowledged “that will look different and sound different in some communities”."}],[{"start":266.68,"text":"Polling shows that the cost of living remains the most important issue for voters ahead of the midterm elections and a liability for Trump and the Republican Party. Some 68 per cent of voters in a June FT poll said they disapproved of the president’s handling of inflation and the cost of living."}],[{"start":283.8,"text":"In Virginia, Spanberger’s approval ratings have fallen sharply since she was sworn in as governor in January. A poll conducted in late June and early July by Virginia Commonwealth University showed them to be underwater, with just 38 per cent of Virginians saying the state was headed in the right direction."}],[{"start":300.88,"text":"Spanberger said the polling underscored the challenges for her and other elected officials in addressing voters’ concerns, especially about the cost of living."}],[{"start":309.16,"text":"“Everything is hard. People are worried, and it impacts every aspect of how they view things,” she said."}],[{"start":316.24,"text":"But the governor — who made her debut on the national political stage in 2018, when Democrats picked up dozens of House seats at the halfway point of Trump’s first term in office — projected cautious optimism that voters would turn out to back Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in November."}],[{"start":332.56,"text":"“In 2026, there are people who are too busy and too tired and too exhausted and too stressed out and too worried about their bills to go out and do the march or show up with the sign,” Spanberger said. “But they are going to vote.”"}],[{"start":351.8,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1785999735_9702.mp3"}