Independent Women’s Voice recently launched a campaign to stand up for women by exposing the anti-female agenda of former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, who is now running for Virginia governor. Spanberger is often positioned as a centrist, but her record shows otherwise.

Despite thousands of women and girls being forced to compete with men in women’s sports, losing roster spots and playing time and suffering injuries — including in our state of Virginia — Spanberger continues to oppose measures to ensure that women’s sports are for women only. While in Congress, Spanberger voted to allow men in women’s sports. Spanberger voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023, landing Spanberger a failing grade on the Riley Gaines Stand with Women Scorecard. 

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This scorecard is a first-of-its-kind resource that tells every person who stands with women and who does not. It lets women and all voters know who wants to protect women’s physical safety, scholarships, funding, and emotional well-being.  

Our multifeature campaign includes radio ads airing across the state through iHeartRadio, highlighting Spanberger’s failure to stand with women and her vote against protecting women’s sports — an issue that more than 80% of swing voters say they support (yet Spanberger is against). Independent Women’s Voice is also organizing a series of opinion editorials from local women. 

Independent Women Features, our grassroots storytelling and original journalism arm of Independent Women, has published various stories on the devastating consequences of the influence of leftist ideologues like Spanberger in Virginia schools. 

After Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, and the NCAA attempted to force the women’s swim team to accept a male athlete, who formerly swam for Roanoke College’s men’s team, as their teammate, three young women bravely put their athletic careers on the line to stand up for fair and safe competition. 

In Loudoun County Public Schools, Policy 8040, passed in 2021, allows students to use the restroom and locker room that aligns with their “gender identity.” 

This policy has enabled dangerous situations for locker rooms and bathrooms, and IW Features reported that two sexual assaults occurred in the district’s high schools as a result of Policy 8040: “The assault rightly triggered parental outrage, but the district’s priority was and remains on students’ so-called right to use whichever facility they prefer.”

Yet as women and girls suffer, Spanberger spent Women’s History Month this year promoting “Trans Visibility Day,” an insult to the women and girls who suffer concussions, lose medals, and see their dreams go up in smoke with men entering female sporting arenas. 

As her record shows, Spanberger is the anti-woman candidate and, even if given the opportunity, she still won’t stand up for women’s rights. In addition to supporting anti-woman sex discrimination in violation of Title IX, Spanberger’s broader policy record proves she’s an extremist, leftist ideologue. Spanberger earned a 5% lifetime grade on the Heritage Action for America scorecard, which tracks issues of importance to Republicans. If Spanberger was truly a centrist, she’d have an even higher score than half the 10% grade earned by the average House Democrat. 

Instead, Spanberger spent six years in Congress voting for bills that constrict economic freedom, deplete U.S. border security, and restrict voter ID. 

Spanberger also voted against the Laken Riley Act, a truly bipartisan measure that empowers federal leaders to take an MS-13 gang leader off the streets of Virginia. If she was a centrist seeking bipartisanship, Spanberger would have joined 37 of her Democratic House colleagues to vote for the Laken Riley Act. Instead, Spanberger supports gang leaders terrorizing our Virginia neighborhoods.

There’s more.

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Spanberger also voted against religious freedom by rejecting a reasonable religious exemption in a pregnancy accommodations bill. Spanberger failed to stand up to former President Joe Biden’s spending blowouts, which recklessly siphoned money to political allies for failed “green energy” boondoggles. This massive spending binge also fed the record inflation that has left so many families struggling today. 

My fellow Virginians, we deserve better than Spanberger.

Carrie Sheffield, a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice and a resident of Arlington, Virginia, leads the Northern Virginia chapter of Independent Women’s Network.