Abigail Spanberger

She was also boosted by Joe Biden narrowly carrying the district; Biden is the first Democrat to win what is now the 7th since 1948.

A number of sources claimed Spanberger was the first Democrat to win this seat since 1970, when four-term Democrat John Marsh retired and was succeeded by Republican J. Kenneth Robinson.

Abigail Anne Spanberger (née Davis; born August 7, 1979) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from VA's 7th congressional district since 2019.

She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Spanberger is a former CIA officer.

Spanberger was born Abigail Anne Davis in Red Bank, New Jersey, on August 7, 1979, where her father was a police officer and her mother was a nurse.

She relocated with her parents, Martin and Eileen Davis, to Short Pump, in Henrico County in Virginia, outside Richmond, when she was 13 after her father moved from policing to federal law enforcement for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

She attended John Randolph Tucker High School.

Spanberger was later a page for U.S. Senator Chuck Robb.

Spanberger earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration from a joint program between the GISMA Business School in Germany and Purdue University's Krannert School of Management.

But until 1993, the 7th stretched from the outer Washington suburbs through the Shenandoah Valley and Charlottesville to the outer Richmond suburbs; the present 7th is geographically and demographically the successor to what was the 3rd district before 1993.

Spanberger faced a close reelection contest against state Delegate Nick Freitas, who represents much of the congressional district's northern portion.

She won with 51% of the vote to Freitas's 49%.

Freitas carried eight of the district's ten counties, as Brat had done two years earlier.

But Spanberger again prevailed by winning the district's shares of Henrico and Chesterfield counties by a combined 43,400 votes, five times her overall margin of 8,400 votes.

In the early 2000s, she was a postal inspector, working on money laundering and narcotics cases.

In 2002 and 2003, Spanberger taught English literature as a substitute teacher at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia.

In 2006, Spanberger joined the Central Intelligence Agency as an operations officer.

She said she gathered intelligence about nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

In 2014, Spanberger left the CIA and entered the private sector.

She was hired by Royall & Company (now EAB).

In 2017, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe appointed her to the Virginia Fair Housing Board.

In July 2017, Spanberger announced her candidacy for the United States House of Representatives in VA's 7th congressional district in the 2018 election against incumbent Republican Dave Brat, a Tea Party movement member.

She made the final decision to run after the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Spanberger defeated Republican incumbent Dave Brat in 2018, ending the Republican Party's 38-year hold on the district.

On June 12, 2018, Spanberger defeated Dan Ward in the Democratic primary election with 73% of the vote, receiving more votes than any other candidate in the Virginia primaries that day.

Her campaign outraised Brat's. In August, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely aligned with Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, conducted a smear campaign against Spanberger.

The smear campaign, which attempted to tie her to terrorism, was based on an SF-86 application she completed to obtain security clearance, which was inappropriately released in breach of privacy rules.

She won the November 6 general election by just over 6,800 votes.

While Brat won eight of the district's ten counties, Spanberger dominated the two largest counties, Henrico and Chesterfield, by a combined margin of over 30,000 votes.

In a visit to the district, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon described it as "an absolute bellwether of the entire country", adding that losing the district would mean the GOP losing control of the House.

She won reelection in 2020 and 2022.

In November 2023 Spanberger announced that she would be retiring from the House in order to run for governor of Virginia.

She would be Virginia’s first female Governor if elected.

On November 5, days after winning reelection by a margin of 1.8%, Spanberger criticized the Democratic Party's strategy for the 2020 elections in a phone call with other Democratic caucus members that was subsequently leaked.

Calling the elections "a failure" from a congressional standpoint, she singled out Republican attack ads decrying "socialism" and the movement to "defund the police" as prime reasons the Democratic Party lost seats in swing districts.

She argued that Democrats should watch Republican ads before deciding how to talk about issues and "not ever use the word 'socialist' or 'socialism' ever again".

CNN political editor Chris Cillizza described Spanberger's remarks as "some hard truth" for the Democratic Party, adding that in order to succeed in the 2022 and 2024 elections, the party should "listen to the likes of Spanberger" instead of pushing for "the boldest possible progressive legislation".

Spanberger's remarks were disputed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who noted that Democrats kept the House, and progressive Representative Rashida Tlaib, who said the Democratic Party should "study the results" before dismissing progressives who represent their districts.

The Washington Post digital editor James Downie criticized Spanberger's view, remarking that if a losing officeholder "couldn't manage to tie his or her Republican opponent to almost a quarter of a million COVID-19 deaths in the United States, a tanked economy or a dozen other policy fiascos, that's the candidate's fault."