'Hope Is Not a Strategy'
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger delivered a policy speech on Wednesday at IBEW Local 26 in Manassas that outlined her plan to grow Virginia's economy.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Working in the insurance corporate world, Travis Brown found his career hitting a wall. “I was kind of burned out … not really moving along in my career” with a salary that was stalled.
Through a high school friend, he learned about an apprenticeship program offered through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local Union 26. Today, he’s a coordinator for the electrical contractor he works for and is enjoying a rewarding career that has benefitted him personally, as well as his family.
It’s stories like Brown’s that put a face to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger’s plan to “grow Virginia’s economy and protect Virginia’s jobs.”
Speaking before a crowd of reporters and apprentices at IBEW Local Union 26 in Manassas on Wednesday afternoon, Spanberger said that “IBEW’s apprenticeship program sets Virginians up for success not just for work, [but] for success and for family-sustaining careers.”
Opportunities like these are critical at a time when Virginia’s economy is suffering from massive cuts to the federal workforce, as well as reductions in the number of people who will receive Medicaid.
Asked during a Q&A with reporters prior to her speech if Nothern Virginia should begin moving away from its reliance on federal contracts to building its own economy, Spanberger said that the area needs “stronger diversification within the Northern Virginia economy.”
Rather than re-inventing Northern Virginia’s economy, Spanberger said that “we have a real opportunity to grow some of the industries that … originated … because of the number of federal workers and federal agencies based in Northern Virginia.” In particular, she referenced cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence.
Her aim is to “make Virginia a place where any private sector company” that wants to engage in these spaces or build upon the expertise within the federal government can do that.
Growing Virginia Plan
The challenge isn’t limited to Northern Virginia. Spanberger is now moving across Virginia describing how she plans to grow and strengthen Virginia’s economy across the board. That approach is outlined in her “Growing Virginia Plan,” and was the subject of her speech at IBEW Local Union 26 on Wednesday.
Spanberger said he plan is “focused on developing, attracting, retaining, and supporting the Virginians who make our economy work. This is Virginia’s competitive advantage.”
To do that, Spanberger’s plan rests on three legs — growing the workforce, growing business investment, and growing trade opportunities.
On the workforce front, Spanberger said that she “will be focused on aligning education, and workforce training initiatives with the needs of workers and businesses across the commonwealth.”
This includes promoting registered apprenticeship programs, as well as expanding pre-apprenticeship programs that give students hands-on work experience and connects them to registered apprenticeship programs.
To attract investments and businesses that want to take advantage of the commonwealth’s labor force, Spanberger stressed the importance of infrastructure.
“We need a leader,” she said, who understands that bringing new businesses to Virginia” requires “reliable infrastructure — our roads, our bridges, our water systems, and our internet. We need to have affordable childcare … and health care. We need to have strong, nation-leading public schools. And we need to have the courage to stand up to the actions in Washington that kill Virginia jobs and hurt our economy.”
Of the third leg — trade — Spanberger said “the Trump administration’s unpredictable tariffs bring into sharp focus what we already knew; that trade is a key component of our economic growth.” Some 90,000 jobs, she noted, are directly dependent of exports.
She went on to stress her role in pushing the USMCA trade deal in Congress and working with her colleagues in the House to “get things done.”
Virginia, she said, “needs a governor who is focused on strengthening our trade relations and finding the markets for Virginia exports, not cheering on potential trade wars or hoping it will all work out. Hope is not a strategy.”
Lowering Living Costs
Opportunities is the word that Spanberger says she has heard consistently from people and families over the past year-and-a-half — “increasing opportunity for them, their kids, their communities.”
To do this, she continued, “Virginians need to be able to actually afford to live in our commonwealth.”
Spanberger has previously laid out her plans for this in her Affordable Virginia Plan, which focuses on making medications and coverage more affordable, lower home prices and increase the housing supply, and lowering energy bills.
Deportation and Its Effect on the Virginia Economy
One challenge to the building industry — a key player in addressing Virginia’s housing shortage — is the potential reduction in workers due to stepped-up deportation efforts by the Trump administration.
The Advance asked Spanberger how she would deal with ICE and the deportation of immigrants.
She stressed two things. First, make clear “the negative impact on Virginia’s economy of the reality that we have a[n immigration] system that doesn’t work. We have employers across Virginia and across the country who want to hire people … people with temporary protective status and actual legal authorization to work completely and fully.”
She said that the revocation of many people’s legal authorization is “not only devastating for families who have done everything right … but it’s devastating for employers who have hired someone believing, because it was in fact the letter of the law, that those folks would be able to continue working years into the future.”
Second, she said, it’s important to highlight “not just the laws that are not working, but a system where we are endeavoring to create fear.”
Beyond this, Spanberger stressed that she did not think that “local police departments and local sheriff deputies should be doing the work of immigration enforcement.” They should be keeping our communities safe.
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