Virginia Is for Locker-Room Talk

Abigail Spanberger’s muddled response to an attack on trans issues has once again highlighted Democrats’ inability to articulate a coherent response—a full year after Kamala faced the same campaign scrutiny.

That Spanberger repeated the words “safety,” “competitiveness,” and “fairness” four different times in the same Roanoke interview was a tell—she knows that the swing voters who decide statewide elections in Virginia aren’t comfortable having their daughters share a playing field or a locker room with someone who wasn’t born female. Photo: Vitalii Nosach/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images

Peter Hamby

September 30, 2025

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A second “they/them” ad has hit the campaign trail. This one is running in Virginia, where the governor’s race is closely watched but not particularly close, as moderate Democrat Abigail Spanberger has held on to a healthy lead for most of the year. But with a month to go, the flailing Republican nominee, Winsome Earle-Sears, has pivoted to a full scorched-earth campaign on the issue of trans rights—a topic that continues to trip up Democrats a full year after Kamala Harris was swamped by searing ads highlighting her support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for prisoners.