Meghan McCain remembers when Democrats pretended to care about public safety.
McCain watched Spanberger campaign across Virginia touting her law enforcement background and retired cop father.
Then McCain watched Spanberger's first six hours as governor and fired off what every Virginia conservative was thinking: "She's been in office like 6 hours and is already trying to turn Virginia into Minneapolis."
Virginia Governor Ends ICE Cooperation After Youngkin Executive Order Rescinded
Spanberger's first major action? Rescinding Glenn Youngkin's executive order that required Virginia law enforcement to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Saturday afternoon, hours after her inauguration, she signed the directive ending collaboration between Virginia State Police and federal agents hunting criminal illegal immigrants.
"State and local law enforcement should not be required to divert their limited resources to enforce federal, civil immigration laws," Spanberger declared, reading straight from the sanctuary city playbook that turned Minneapolis into a war zone.
Youngkin's original order created a Virginia State Police task force deputized to help ICE arrest illegal immigrants with criminal records and active deportation orders.
Not random immigrants walking to work.
Criminals already convicted, already ordered deported, still walking free because local authorities refused to make the call.
Youngkin pointed to hard numbers: Virginia led the nation in reducing fentanyl deaths and dismantled MS-13 gang infrastructure specifically because state police worked with federal agents instead of obstructing them.
Spanberger's response was shredding the entire program before unpacking boxes in the governor's mansion.
Virginia Democrats Eliminate Mandatory Minimum Sentencing For Rape And Child Pornography
While Spanberger smiled for cameras, Virginia Democrats introduced bills that should terrify every parent in the Commonwealth.
Jason Miyares – the outgoing Republican attorney general – documented exactly what Democrats filed on Day One.
Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for rape.
Eliminate mandatory minimums for manslaughter.
Eliminate mandatory minimums for assaulting police officers.
Eliminate mandatory minimums for possession and distribution of child pornography.
Eliminate mandatory minimums for repeat violent felonies.
Democrats also killed the five-day mandatory jail sentence for first-time DUI offenders.
This from the same Abigail Spanberger who campaigned on crime ads featuring her father in his police uniform.
Fox News host Mark Levin didn't mince words: Spanberger "lied through her teeth" about being a moderate and is now "moving at high speed to permanently radicalize and change the state."
Former NRCC executive director Rob Simms was more direct: "She's a fraud, has always been a fraud, will always be a fraud."
Virginia Tax Increases Target Investment Income Despite Affordability Campaign
Democrats swept Virginia in 2025 promising to make life affordable.
Their Day One legislative agenda was a tax increase bonanza.
New taxes on investment income – hitting retirees who thought they could retire in Virginia without getting robbed by the state.
Retail sales tax expansion to dry cleaning, landscaping, pet care, haircuts, and gym memberships.
A Northern Virginia delivery tax on every Amazon package, every UPS shipment.
An 11% tax on firearms.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley saw exactly where this leads: Democrats are copying California's playbook of taxing productive citizens until they flee the state.
That's the strategy – chase out taxpayers, import government dependents, create a permanent blue majority.
DEI Takes Over Government Contracts
Democrats passed legislation requiring 42% of state contracts under $100,000 to go to businesses picked based on skin color and gender rather than who submits the best bid.
The Supreme Court already ruled on this in the college admissions cases.
You can't discriminate based on race and sex when admitting students to universities.
You definitely can't discriminate when awarding taxpayer-funded government contracts.
Democrats apparently missed that memo, or more likely received it and decided their ideology trumps the Constitution.
White male business owners in Virginia just got told their bids don't matter if they're the wrong demographic.
Virginia Abortion Amendment Advances With Parental Rights Eliminated
The state Senate passed the final legislative step needed to put abortion rights in Virginia's Constitution.
If voters approve in November, the amendment allows abortion through the first two trimesters and lets Virginia "regulate" third-trimester procedures.
Pro-life advocates are warning what "regulate" actually means in practice.
Victoria Cobb, Family Foundation of Virginia president, explained the parental rights disaster: "When a young girl considers an abortion, her parent would have to be involved, this amendment would essentially override that."
Current Virginia law requires three doctors to approve late-term abortions – certifying either the child isn't viable or there's legitimate medical necessity.
Under the new amendment?
"The only person making that decision about whether an abortion is allowed at the very latest moments is the abortionist, the one who profits from the procedure," Cobb warned.
That's not restoring Roe v. Wade like Democrats claim.
That's creating a system where abortionists regulate themselves on third-trimester procedures – the person making money from the abortion is the only person who decides if it's necessary.
The Rest Of The Radical Agenda Democrats Hid Until After Winning
Democrats banned hand-counting paper ballots to verify machine results.
They're regulating gas-powered leaf blowers.
A redistricting amendment moving forward would give Democrats a 10-1 advantage in congressional seats from a purple state – and Spanberger calls this "a response to extreme measures that undermine democratic norms" without a hint of irony.
New attorney general Jay Jones announced he's reversing the Republican opinion that said illegal immigrants aren't entitled to in-state tuition at Virginia universities.
Spanberger also rejoined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – the carbon cap-and-trade scheme that forces energy companies to pay penalties, which get passed to consumers as higher electric bills, and Democrats claim this "saves money" because the government spends the tax revenue on environmental programs.
Every state in RGGI has higher electricity costs than Virginia had under Youngkin.
Spanberger just volunteered to join that club.
Will The Pendulum Swing Back?
Terry Kilgore leads the Republican minority in Virginia's House of Delegates after watching his caucus get crushed from near-parity to a 36-64 deficit.
He's not panicking yet.
"Virginia is not a liberal state," Kilgore said. "The pendulum swings back. I've been in politics a long time, and I've seen the pendulum go back and forth in the commonwealth of Virginia, and I'm sure that we'll be back."
He's betting Virginia voters will watch their taxes spike, energy bills climb, criminal illegal immigrants walk free, and rapists avoid mandatory prison time – then decide they were sold a fraud.
The question is whether Kilgore's right about the pendulum swinging back, or whether Democrats successfully locked in demographic and structural advantages that survive the backlash.
Northern Virginia's federal workforce isn't leaving.
The progressive activists flooding into Fairfax County from D.C. aren't going anywhere.
And with Democrats controlling redistricting, ballot procedures, and every lever of state government for two years minimum, they've got a narrow window to cement advantages that outlast whatever voter anger is building.
Meghan McCain called it six hours into Spanberger's governorship.
The rest of Virginia is about to learn she was right.
Sources:
- Alec Schemmel, "Conservatives rip Virginia governor's 'moderate' label after radical laundry list of Day 1 moves," Fox News, January 21, 2026.
- Gregory S. Schneider, "Spanberger signals left bent after centrist campaign; GOP leader warns of 'Fairfaxing the rest of VA'," Fox News, January 20, 2026.
- Staff, "Abigail Spanberger Repeals Glen Youngkin's ICE Cooperation Order on First Day as Virginia Governor," Newsweek, January 17, 2026.
- Staff, "What does new Virginia Gov. Spanberger's ICE executive order actually do?," WTVR, January 20, 2026.
- David Smith, "Abigail Spanberger sworn in as Virginia's first female governor," The Washington Post, January 18, 2026.