There’s an old adage among political insiders about how the Republican and Democratic parties handle wins and losses.
Commentators often observe that when Republicans face a defeat, they worry it might be the last time they can recover; conversely, when Democrats celebrate a victory, they tend to govern as though another win is a given.
Virginia provides a clear example of this enduring truth.
During my tenure as Virginia’s Republican Attorney General, from 2022 until 2026, I teamed up with Governor Glenn Youngkin to revitalize a state that was struggling on many fronts.
At the outset of our administration, Virginia found itself languishing at 46th place out of the 50 states in terms of job creation in the post-COVID era.
Our schools were among the last in the country to reopen.
The murder rate had reached a 20-year high, and fentanyl overdose deaths hit new records.
People and businesses were voting with their feet: For the first time in a century, Virginia experienced eight consecutive years of net population loss.
Commonsense conservative ideas and leadership changed the trajectory.
Under Youngkin, Virginia climbed from the bottom tier of job creation to the top five.
Smart fiscal discipline produced budget surpluses every year, even while delivering more than $9 billion in tax relief.
Over $156 billion in new business investment flowed into the commonwealth, more than under the previous six governors combined.
The murder rate fell, and Virginia led the nation in reducing drug overdose deaths because we chose to work with law enforcement rather than against it.
Some dubbed it the “Virginia Renaissance.”
Virginia Democrats have rejected that Renaissance.
In doing so, Gov. Abigail Spanberger has managed to become one of the least popular governors in modern state history after a little more than half a year in office.
All it took was five easy steps.
Step 1: Drive businesses away
Virginia Democrats have proposed more than $37 billion in new taxes in 2026, one analysis found — despite the budget surplus that Youngkin’s policies left them.
Democrats in Richmond have enacted a sweeping payroll tax and a carbon tax, and their new regulatory burdens have increased the effective cost of hiring in Virginia by 22.5% , the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy estimates.
Under Spanberger, Boeing, Amazon and many other companies have announced closures or layoffs in the commonwealth.
Step 2: Impose an energy tax
Virginia must double its baseload electricity capacity over the next decade to meet growing demand.
The rational response would be expanding natural gas and nuclear energy — proven, reliable and affordable energy sources.
Instead, Spanberger is pushing energy suicide by advancing an extreme green agenda centered on intermittent wind and solar power.
Democrats are forcing ratepayers to purchase “renewable energy credits” that generate no actual electricity — a de facto carbon tax that’s costing Virginians hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and will soon add up to $1 billion or more a year.
Step 3: Prioritize offenders over victims and tie law enforcement’s hands
Under the Democrats’ “Enhanced Earned Sentence Credits” program, more than 9,000 convicted felons have been released early, some with decades remaining on their sentences; nearly half of them have already been re-arrested.
As a former prosecutor, I can affirm that justice means accountability — and accountability means serving the sentence imposed.
Moreover, one of Spanberger’s first official acts was ordering state law enforcement to stop cooperating with federal authorities to deport violent illegal immigrants, even those convicted of rape and murder, putting innocent Virginians at risk.
Step 4: Undermine workers’ rights and force unions on local governments
Virginia’s right-to-work law has been key in attracting and retaining manufacturing jobs — but Spanberger, while in Congress, was a co-sponsor of the PRO Act, which would have abolished right-to-work protections in Virginia and 26 other states.
Now, as governor, she is poised to sign mandatory collective bargaining legislation that forces all government employees into bargaining units, stripping local governments of flexibility and guaranteeing property-tax increases across the board.
Chesterfield County alone estimates the cost to its taxpayers at $200 million per year. Extrapolated across Virginia, the fiscal damage will be devastating.
Step 5: Push partisan politics in defiance of the state constitution
In 2020, Virginia voters amended their state constitution — by a two-thirds supermajority — to enact a nonpartisan redistricting process.
Yet Spanberger, who campaigned as a pragmatic leader who would transcend party politics, supported an egregious partisan gerrymander under which the 46% of Virginians who voted Republican in 2024 would have held approximately 9% of the state’s congressional seats.
And while our state Supreme Court struck down the power grab, the damage to Spanberger’s credibility was done.
The Virginia Renaissance was the product of principled, disciplined governance focused on the people rather than the political class.
What’s unfolding now in Richmond is its deliberate undoing at the hands of Spanberger and her Democrat allies.
Now, businesses and families are making their own calculations about whether to stay or go.
History, and the voters, will render their verdict in time.
Jason Miyares, Virginia’s attorney general from 2022 to 2026, is a partner at Torridon Law PLCC. Adapted from City Journal.