Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) is standing by her economic record at the six-month mark of her administration, while a new poll shows her disapproval numbers stand 3 points higher than her 44% approval rating.
Virginia Commonwealth University released a poll on Wednesday showing Spanberger with a 47% disapproval rating six months into her role as Virginia‘s governor. The survey results also ranked inflation and the cost of living as the No. 1 issue facing Virginians, six months after Spanberger took the oath of office and vowed to tackle affordability issues as her top priority.
But Spanberger remains determined in her mission to deliver a more affordable commonwealth to Virginians, touting her signing of the Affordable Virginia Agenda into law in a Friday statement.
“Since day one, we have been focused on the challenge Virginians tell me about everywhere I go: the high cost of living,” Spanberger said. “We’re delivering tax relief by increasing the standard deduction. We’re raising the minimum wage. We’re capping the out-of-pocket cost of insulin. We’re becoming the first state in the South to offer paid family and medical leave to working Virginians. And we established a first-of-its-kind energy consumption tax on data centers.”
Thirty percent of VCU’s survey respondents listed inflation and the cost of living as the top concern for Virginia taxpayers, up 2 points from the same poll in 2025, when Gov. Glenn Youngkin was in office.
VCU distinguished professor and former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder wrote in the university’s survey results that it was unusual for a governor to have such low approval this early in her administration.
“These findings suggest that Virginians are paying attention to the issues that matter most in their daily lives,” Wilder said. “The message from the people is unmistakable: Public trust is earned through leadership that listens, governance that delivers and results that improve the lives of all Virginians.”
But Spanberger assured reporters this week that she knew affordability issues would still be a concern for voters.
“I did not need a poll to know that that would be what people would be talking about,” Spanberger told Virginia Mercury.
Spanberger also told the Virginia outlet that the onus remains on the state’s Democratic-led executive branch and legislature to communicate to voters how her changes can positively impact their wallets.
“The priority needs to be on our administration and, frankly, the members of the General Assembly who passed all these bills, to be connecting the dots,” Spanberger said.
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She also stressed the lessons she has learned about communication throughout her first six months, telling the Virginia Scope that she “can never actually overcommunicate,” particularly touching on her returning legislative amendments after the General Assembly’s regular session, which had reportedly been a point of miscommunication between Spanberger and the legislature.
“It’s actually just human nature and a busy schedule, and it’s something that I frankly should have clocked earlier,” Spanberger told the outlet. “But making sure that over-communicating needs to be the bare minimum, particularly with a legislative body that moves at such an intense pace because it’s part-time.”