The lesson is to LISTEN to voters, not feeding them pablum, not moderating or moving to the center because the consultants advise it. If voters in a district want a moderate, so be it. But if they want a Zohran Mamdani, give them that.

Voters decide.

what Mamdani would but Spanberger would not?

It’s confusing to me what makes Spanberger a “moderate”. Richmond VA has free bus lines. She ran on raising teacher pay, funding education, expanding funding for community policing programs, de-escalation training, and officer mental health services. She emphasizes that safety starts with trust between officers and residents.

Both women ran for Governor so obviously many of their policy initiatives are for an entire state rather than I more localized urban city yet I get so confused by what makes a way forward that all embraced — affordability, a focus on middle class and fairness not the way forward. What’s the differentiation you see in their policies?

There's no point in an anonymous, unpaid DUer such as myself going on "data quests" when each of us can usually find our own sources of reliable information so easily. If someone asks for a comparison of policies and leaders, for example, across three states, it's a fool's errand, even if the folks asking for the errand don't mean it as such. Why would the results of the errand be trusted? It would actually not be an overall good thing if they were.

In this post, I just want to underline the wins by these two Democrats who deserve our thanks and attention. If you have a reason to disagree, I'll be glad to read it.

way forward and called them moderate you could just tell me why. I didn’t ask you to do research. I assumed you already had since you said it.

As for thanks — I thank all the Democrats who ventured into this cesspool of politics. They are courage and I thank each and every one.

1. They are moderates. Use any tools you trust. Mine are Google, YouTube, and AI.
2. They are Democrats and call themselves Democrats. Again, same tools.
3. They prevailed in statewide elections. They are governors-elect. Executives. Same tools will bear this out.

I assume you're not questioning these. But let me know if you are.

These are very strong arguments. Add to that the fact that the elections won by these women were two of the three big elections we won, and you get a mathematical argument that requires no research. 67%.

I simply asked what moderate policies they won on that should be used by Dems as the way forward. . I understand you can’t tell me.no problem.

To try to explain, I think you're "conceding" that there's such a high likelihood that I'm right that it's not worth it for you to do research on your own to respond to the points I listed. Lacking an objection to them, I take it you agree with me on them.

If you're looking for differences of "policy" of these women with Mamdani, I don't actually want to argue over them. There are obvious ones, but why risk unity by rubbing them in. Unity is important and the Democratic Party is.

Other posters note that each locale is different. And I agree. I just happen to think the victories of these two women who are governors-elect and who won top statewide office should outweigh the results of a city mayoral election. Their influence on our strategy should predominate. To me, I'm just afraid that's obvious.

It seems obvious anyway. If you don't find it so, we can agree to disagree.

Spanberger's Winning State wide Elections .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Spanberger#Political_positions

In the 2019 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election on the opening day of the 116th United States Congress, she voted for Representative Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat, joining 11 other Democrats who did not back Nancy Pelosi.

she supported Virginia's existing laws requiring minors seeking abortions to receive parental consent, and certain limitations on third-trimester abortions

On February 1, 2023, Spanberger was among 12 Democrats to vote for a resolution to end the COVID-19 national emergency.

On January 31, 2023, Spanberger was among seven Democrats to vote for H.R. 497, the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act, a bill that would lift COVID-19 vaccine mandates for healthcare workers.

Spanberger opposes defunding the police, and has supported bills that would increase the ability of local police departments to hire and train more officers.

Spanberger called for the passage of the USMCA trade deal negotiated by the Trump administration, Mexico, and Canada.

In May 2020, Spanberger voted against the HEROES Act, a proposed $3 trillion stimulus package in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spanberger called the Green New Deal proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a "bold compilation of ideas meant to address global climate change" but criticized it for allegedly including unrelated policy proposals and not identifying specific resolutions to the problems that it identifies. "Overall I am not a supporter of the Green New Deal", she said.

In June 2025, Spanberger supported the Trump administration's strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

snip

Spanberger disagreed with Biden’s efforts to lift an emergency health order to turn away migrants at the U.S.-Mexican border.

Once in Congress - there are many reasons why people do things, etc. If the media and others are going to talk about Spanberger as a way to campaign going forward - I am interested to know how she campaigned that wasn't on the same policies that progressives would run on. My point is that media may fall into the "moderate" is the way to win elections as opposed to the "progressive" is the way to win elections. Or Mamdani could only win in NYC and Spanberger wouldn't win in NYC yada yada yada. It's a waste of time.

We WON these elections - not simply because Trump is destroying the country - although that has much to do with it. But I'd also like to think we WON so many places because the policies that were run on were affordability and compassion and justice. That's not progressive and that's not moderate. It's Democratic. And not equivocating. And speaking plainly. And running with optimism. And vision. That's a winning strategy. And we do not win when we run on "moderation".

are part of what makes up they way a voter will likely see them as governing in the office they are running for.

I also think, more importantly, that Spanberger and Mamdani have MANY areas of agreement as well, core Democratic (and democratic) values that are vital to making them both great candidates regardless of type of area they are representing.

They both (as did Mikie Sherrill in NJ and most all other Dems running across the nation) had a winning message at the core of their campaigns: 'I truly care about making American life more affordable for ALL the people in my city (or state)'.

That message and its commonality is what I am choosing to focus on.

"moderate" way of winning that should be the way forward and that what Mamdani did in NYC could ONLY be replicated in NYC and no where else. I reject that completely.

I'm not talking about what past votes were. That's candidate driven. Spanberger didn't WIN her race because of her past votes in Congress. She WON her race because of the focus of her campaign.

And all 3 - plus many other Democrats won their races because they focused on real policies that will help people and didn't get bogged down in this "moderate" or "progressive" or center or left wing nonsense.

If I had to choose a way forward - it would be the way they all showed a better future for people. Couple that with Mamdani's charisma, great communication skills and messaging, Spanberger's respected background and laser focus on plain speaking and Dems could win on policy. I wholeheartedly reject this need to focus on "moderate" or "progressive" or whatever other label the consultants and beltway pundits feel it necessary to create factions in the Democratic party.

Mamdani is more aggressive on taxes for corporations/wealthy individuals. Richmond might have free busses, but she's not proposing it for everywhere in Virginia that have busses.

Affordability is a word, by itself, doesn't mean much. Trump used it in a Truth Social post recently for example. It needs to be connected to specific policies to matter as more than a catch phrase. Of course make America great again is a catch phrase and that's been successful for Trump if less so for Republicans as a whole.

as I know Virginia doesn't have rent control at all anywhere in the state and I wouldn't expect her as Governor to make a whole new policy to implement city-wide. So her policies on making housing more affordable make sense for the state. I wouldn't consider them "moderate" or "progressive" - just smart and appropriate for Virginia.

Re buses - while I know that Virginia has free bus lines in Alexandria, Blacksburg, Charlottesville, Fairfax County, Loudan and Henrico in addition to Richmond - again I wouldn't expect Spanberger to run on the entire state have free public transportation. I doubt Mamdani would be doing that for all of NY. The simple fact is that there is a need for free public lines and even Mamdani isn't suggesting that all buses and trains be free. But Spanberger didn't run on getting rid of all those bus lines in Virginia so I don't consider Mamdani's proposal as particularly "progressive" and her not running on them as "moderate". I just think it's smart policy and appropriate for NYC and many cities in VA already have it - so not a point of contention.

I haven't seen much about taxes from Spanberger other than she has expressed a focus on fairness and she has expressed her position emphasizes ensuring that the wealthy and large corporations contribute more to the economy and tax system and wants to close tax loopholes that allow corporations to pay next to nothing on taxes. Mamdani has said he would like a 2% over $1mil. So a person in NYC that makes $1.5mil would wind up paying a whopping $10,000 more on their income tax!. Wow. So, again, with NYC being a city and having a real crisis in affordability and having a much larger concentration of wealth than VA overall - I can certainly see why Mamdani is looking to raise taxes on wealthy in New York City and Spanberger, as Governor, hasn't specifically addressed a policy on that. I do think the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors that runs Fairfax County which is one of the wealthiest areas in Virginia should probably address that rather than the across the board 4% food and beverage tax they instituted.

But I do appreciate your responding with real information. I find it makes for a generally interesting discussion about real things and I always welcome that.

New York City is not New York State is not New Jersey is not Virginia.

The important thing is to running candidates that appeal to their constituencies. Of course it didn’t hurt that Trump has been a complete disaster in the very long 9+ months.

Are things I just avoid anymore. First, no one here at DU can really influence the direction. Second, the story is not the same in every region or State or locality.