See below for video and a transcript (bolding added by me for emphasis of stuff that jumped out) of Abigail Spanberger’s fired-up speech at the opening night of the 2025 VA Women’s Summit last night. The room was packed and really electrified – great to see, we all need that at this point.
“The best place to be this evening is with the people of Network NOVA. And I want to thank Senator Kaine for that amazing introduction, because what we know to be true is that here in Virginia, we may be pretty nice but when someone attacks the things that we care about, our spines stiffen and our focus is clear. That’s right! And at this moment in time, the things that are most important to us as Virginians are under attack – the health of our fellow Virginiaians, the health care of hundreds of thousands of Virginiaians, food security programs that are so vital to so many families, the livelihoods of more than 320,000 people who call Virginia home, day by day the chaos coming out of this Republican Congress. The chaos coming out of the Trump administration is hurting Virginia and we need a governor who will stand up for Virginia, for Virginians…
Along the campaign trail sometimes people ask me the very obvious question, ‘well when you’re elected governor, how can you stop all of these things?’ The answer is ‘I can’t stop everything, but I will name and number every assault on Virginia – how many federal employees have been fired…how many companies have gone under because their contracts have disappeared, how many people have lost their healthcare, how many hospitals have closed, how many millions upon millions of dollars have not gone to our universities because they’ve been sucked back by the federal government, how many farmers put out money waiting for those conservation programs to come through and they pulled those dollars back time and time again. We have to name and number the assaults that they are bringing towards Virginia.
And today, the Senator brought up the University of Virginia and the forced resignation of the university president. And what that is is extortion. To say that the Department of Justice will continue an inquiry against the university unless the president resigns; if the president resigns it’s all over, it’s done. Well if there’s nothing wrong that happened, why are you investigating? And how does that all just disappear if this one man resigns? It’s an assault on academic freedom, it’s an assault on frankly a draw to our Commonwealth. How many people come to Virginia because of our universities, so many of our universities? They come here, they fall in love with the Commonwealth and then they don’t leave. The idea that the Department of Justice would target one of our universities, it’s not done there. And we need a governor who will stand up and frankly we also need to celebrate that when we have good people focused on uplifting our fellow Virginians, focused on education, focused on strengthening our communities, we do well.
I think there’s a former Secretary of Education who will be celebrating her 40th wedding anniversary this weekend. Because it isn’t just about who we elect as governor, it’s about the people brought into an administration who are focused on serving all of us. And at this moment in time when we are all joined here together, I think of the ferocity I have witnessed in the halls of Congress and on the campaign trail. And so I just want to say, thank you to Smitty [Connolly] and Caitlyn [Connolly], because I don’t know that there was anyone more ferocious in Virginia politics than Gerry Connolly, a man who would fight fiercely but joyfully; a man who when you could see he was about to go after somebody on the other side of the aisle, his eyes would twinkle, he would be filled with joy. And occasionally he’d say ‘I just have this little leprechaun on my shoulder.’ His excuse for everything. But he would stand up for Virginia.
And and when I think about what this election means for all of us in the room, it is about what we are standing up against the chaos, the assault on our communities, on our commonwealth. It is also what we are standing up for, because the reality is there are people across Virginia who need us to be focused on lowering the costs of housing, of health care, of energy. There are people across Virginia who need us to come in day one with a plan to impact their lives for the better, with a deep commitment to recognizing that every Virginian, no matter what part of the Commonwealth they call home, that they can feel steady and secure in their life, in their livelihood, in their ability to provide for their children, in their their ability to protect their family, in their ability to know the future of their kids will be bright.
And the reality is, right now everywhere I travel across Virginia. there are people with worries because the chaos, the anger, the division, it is too much. And at times I know the feeling. But I would say when you look around in this room, let’s think about the fact that in reality, we are lucky across the country there are people who feel the same way that we feel. But they don’t get to vote in November of 2025. In Virginia, we have elections every single year.
And to the people of Network NOVA who write postcards and knock doors and phone bank and relentlessly work for candidates, I know that is exhausting. But this year, it’s an amazing opportunity and an amazing responsibility. Because this year, it’s just us and New Jersey. And I don’t know about you, but I think Virginia is a bit more exciting, because in Virginia we are the only state in the country that has the opportunity to flip a statewide seat. And it’s not just one statewide seat, it’s not just two, it is THREE statewide seats. it is not just three statewide seats, we have 100 Democrats running in every corner of Virginia [Applause]…in every corner of Virginia who believe in their communities, who want to bring their voices to Richmond, who are stepping into rooms and saying ‘I am a Democrat and I am asking for your vote.’ And we have people in the reddest of the red saying ‘oh okay, huh, let’s go 98 we are on our way.
I joked with Don Scott though, as a member of the House of Representatives I will say that when you have large groups of Democrats together, sometimes it feels like herding cats. And I told Speaker Scott I want the majority to be so big, so big that sometimes he’s like, ‘gosh, I just have so many Democrats, I can’t’. That is success.”
And so I will leave you with this, because I see Katherine approaching. At one point in time, when I was going on about something to my mother who’s here somewhere, and I was sort of running my mouth about something that was bothering me about politics, and my mother just said ‘Let your rage fuel you.’ And so Mom, I love you, I thank you for the sage advice. And to the rest of us, every time we hear a new story, we let it fuel us. Every time we turn on the news, we let it fuel us. Every time something bad is happening, we say ‘oh that’s motivation.’
I’ll tell you this, I have an opponent who’s incredibly motivating. And so every time something happens in the world, in this country, coming out of Capitol Hill or coming out of this White House, we just say ‘boy am I motivated today.’ We write more postcards, we knock more doors, we make more phone calls, we tell more friends about the importance of this election.
Because this November, we are going to send a message to the rest of the country and the world – we are not just going to flip three statewide seats, we are not just going to win more seats in the House of Delegates, we are going to send a resounding message about who we are, what we want, what we deserve, to our fellow Virginians to the rest of the country, to the rest of the world. We are going to crush it in November and we are voting to pave a path towards elections every year in Virginia!”
Sign up for the Blue Virginia breaking news newsletter
