Why Is Obama Returning to Campaign in This Virginia Region for First Time in 13 Years?

How close is the race for Virginia’s next governor? We could cite polls (Democrat Abigail Spanberger leads by more than five points in the two that were released in the past week) or go over campaign contributions (Spanberger raised $12.6 million in September while Republican Winsome Earle-Sears raised $9.1 million), but it doesn’t appear that those statistics are telling the whole story.

For the first time since 2021, President Barack Obama will be coming to campaign in Virginia. The Nov. 1 event in Hampton Roads is his first visit to that region since 2012 during his own reelection campaign. As poker players refer to it, that’s the “tell.”

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Despite Republican gains in Northern Virginia counties like Loudoun and Fairfax in 2021, it was the Republican ticket’s strength in the Hampton Roads region that pushed the ticket to victory in 2021. The three Republican statewide candidates all lived in the area, and then-lieutenant governor candidate Earle-Sears and then-attorney general candidate Jason Miyares both represented districts there in the House of Delegates.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump was asked why he had not endorsed Earle-Sears this year, to which he responded, “I think the Republican candidate is very good, and she should win because the Democratic candidate is a disaster.”

In the ads Obama recently recorded for Spanberger, he said, “Virginia’s elections are some of the most important in the country this year.” Why would he say that? For a couple of reasons.

The first is money. The direst issue to the Democratic Party—and more importantly, to those that give Democrats money, like climate venture capitalist Tom Steyer and the specter-like George Soros—would be the end of the Virginia Clean Economy Act.

The Democratic Party Leadership is already facing several Democrat legislators admitting that they are open to rewriting the act. It’s also facing voters railing against the dire rhetoric of Dominion Energy telling them that rate hikes and brownouts are coming while saying that it has to build the inefficient renewable energy production facilities because of the law.

The stakes in this race are the billions of dollars in government subsidies that support these programs, according to data from the Conveners Network, an organization that helps companies find subsidies for renewable energy. If another Republican governor is elected who has a Republican House of Delegates ready to cut that money flow, you can imagine the urgency of wanting to stop that.

The second reason is normalization. Faster than you can say “Overton Window,” a new GOP majority in the House of Delegates in 2026 could stop a proposed Virginia constitutional amendment that would permit abortion up until the moment of birth.

Make no mistake, the logistics of Obama’s visit to Hampton Roads are also meant to boost the fortunes of vulnerable Democrat delegates in the region who the Democrats need to win in November to prevent a GOP majority in the House. Delegates like 97th District Del. Michael Feggans. It’s a district Republican Glenn Youngkin carried in 2021 on his way to the Governor’s Mansion and Feggans won with just 51% in 2023.

A few photos with Obama holding Feggans’ hand aloft could be just the ticket to defeating popular Republican Tim Anderson (who will be our guest in our election-primer podcasts coming up this week).

If the Democrats keep the House majority, they will be able to pass the constitutional amendment on abortion and send it to the voters next year for approval. What hope can pro-lifers have to pass abortion restrictions in their states if the abortion lobby can point to the precedent-setting amendment enacted in the former home of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington?

We are at the point where polls will feel like they are being released every hour through November—with the results designed to tell conservatives, “Abandon all hope.” Before you fall prey to that emotion, you need to ask yourself, if that were true, why is the president of “Hope and Change” back out on the campaign trail again?

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