It’s been fairly smooth sailing so far for Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat candidate for governor in Virginia, but she has entered some seriously choppy waters of her own making this week. Spanberger, who is going head-to-head with Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, finally was asked some hard questions by the media and she wiffed big time.
Up until now, Spanberger, in true Democrat fashion, has largely avoided media that is not extremely friendly to her (which is most media in the commonwealth). She’s kept a low profile for such a high-profile race, visiting areas of the state that are also friendly to her. But, it was inevitable that her campaign would eventually have to face the hot-button issue facing Northern Virginia (NoVA), one of her electoral strongholds, right now: should biological males be allowed to use the girls bathrooms and locker rooms at the state’s public schools?
She—and her campaign staff—totally blew it. Here’s what happened.
Nick Minock, a reporter from the DC-area ABC affiliate who has been excellent at holding local school systems and administrators accountable for their actions, sent a list of questions to Spanberger’s campaign, seeking to clarify her position on boys using girls bathrooms.
The topic is sure to be a big issue on the campaign this year after the U.S. Department of Education found several NoVA school systems in violation of Title IX. Meaning, these school systems were determined to be violating the rights of girls by forcing them to share school bathrooms and locker rooms with biological males. (And vice versa in one Title IX case pending in Loudoun County.) Some of the school systems, including Loudoun, refuse to comply with federal standards and intend to wage war with the Trump administration.