Could the federal shutdown and DOGE cuts tip Virginia's governor’s race?
FAIRFAX, Virginia – President Donald Trump’s moves to slash the size of the federal government earlier this year left hundreds of thousands unemployed, attracted legal challenges and spurred massive protests across the country.
The ongoing government shutdown that began Oct. 1 has left thousands more furloughed, which could slow critical services or result in mass firings .
Now, Democrats hope these simmering frustrations will boil over in their favor in the Virginia governor’s race , one of this year’s most consequential elections.
More: Mass federal layoffs will start if Trump decides shutdown talks are 'going nowhere,' aide warns
Virginia’s gubernatorial contest is often regarded as the first national referendum on the current president’s agenda. This year, Democrat Abigail Spanberger , a former member of Congress, and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears square off in a race that could create momentum for the national party ‒ or deflate efforts to revive it.
Trump hasn't carried Virginia in any of his three runs for the presidency, which suggests an advantage for Democrats, said Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, who represents naval-heavy areas including Portsmouth and Norfolk.
The government cutbacks could also be an important factor in the race, he and others said.
Between January and May roughly 22,100 people in Virginia lost their jobs after the Department of Government Efficiency axed larger swaths of the federal bureaucracy, according to Federal Reserve data. Leading private sector employers have laid off thousands more.
"There's no question that it's affected attitudes," said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican strategist and president of North Star Opinion Research. "It's very difficult to find someone in the Northern Virginia area who doesn't know someone affected by the DOGE cuts."
The government shutdown could further strain the area’s softening economy.
“There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of angst because there are so many people who have been furloughed, and are not being paid right now throughout the region,” Scott, the speaker, told USA TODAY.
Shutdown showdown
Standing outside of Fairfax County’s Government Center recently, Chris Witter, 54, listed the federal shutdown among the reasons he plans to support Spanberger.
Witter, a self-described centrist, expressed concern that his wife, who works for the federal government, would be without pay until the shutdown ended. He also feared staffing cuts and furloughs at the Department of Veterans Affairs could delay his disability benefits.
“Our money's kind of on hold. It’s painful,” the stay-at-home father of two 16-year-old girls said in an interview.
Witter blamed the shutdown on Republicans and called it an “abuse of power.”
An Oct. 2 poll by The Washington Post found that nearly half of Americans hold Trump and Republicans responsible for the shutdown. If those numbers hold in places like Virginia, that could spell doom for the GOP.
An Emerson College survey released last week, for example, found Trump underwater in Virginia, with 42% approving of his job performance and 54% disapproving.
The longest shutdown in history occurred in 2018 during Trump’s first term and lasted 35 days. Researchers at George Mason estimated it cost the region about $1.6 billion .
Republicans and Democrats have so far shown no signs of compromise, making a lengthy shutdown increasingly possible this year.
Spanberger, 46, who has consistently held a 10-point lead over Earle-Sears, 61, in recent surveys, is leveraging the government shutdown to intensify criticism against her opponent.
“Trump is now threatening DOGE 2.0 and she’s again defending it,” Spanberger wrote on social media Sept. 30 about her opponent.
Meanwhile, Earle-Sears, the state's current lieutenant governor, argued Democrats were at fault for the shutdown in a post on the social media site X . Her campaign has cited the shutdown and recent widely condemned comments from the Democratic candidate for attorney general to paint the Democratic Party as incompetent and hate-filled.
The DOGE effect
Democrats are wagering that the unpopularity of the DOGE cuts in Virginia will boost voter turnout, particularly in deep-blue pockets near Washington, D.C. that have been hardest hit by the changes, said Bob Holsworth, a longtime political analyst in Virginia.
Typically, about a million fewer Virginia residents vote in a gubernatorial election than a presidential race. Mobilizing even small numbers of voters can tip the scales, he said.
Earle-Sears has attempted to distance herself from the cuts, which date to the start of the Trump administration when entrepreneur Elon Musk led the effort to trim the size of the federal government.
Her campaign has emphasized the thousands of Virginia jobs created by her and Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is limited to one term under the commonwealth's rules, as well as culture war issues, including transgender students’ use of bathrooms in schools.
So far, the influence of DOGE and the government shutdown on voter sentiment in Virginia appears mixed.
Fifty-five miles south of the nation’s capital, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, dozens of Spanberger’s blue yard signs dot grassy front lawns near the city’s historic downtown, while signs for Earle-Sears stand on highway medians around the city’s outskirts
Stewart Smothers, 45, said DOGE cuts created a frenzy in Fredericksburg that caused “lots of people to question whether they would lose their job.” He plans to vote for Spanberger.
But he’s not sure how his friends who voted for Trump in last year’s presidential election and have since had their personal lives “thrown into turmoil” are considering the Virginia race.
More: Federal workers' tough year has seen DOGE, government shutdown. Now they face new layoffs
“It was a big stressor there for a while,” he said. “I'm curious.”
Farther north, David Purdy said the cuts were top of mind when he cast his ballot early on a recent cloudy Monday afternoon in Fairfax County.
Purdy, 56, lost his job at the global consulting firm ICF International in March, when his USAID contract ended after Trump dissolved the agency.
“I got all this free time because of the DOGE cuts, so figured I might as well try and get rid of as many people who had a hand in that,” Purdy said. He described himself as a lifelong Republican but said he has voted for Democratic candidates since Trump’s first election in 2016.
'Not the only issue'
Other voters USA TODAY spoke with said the federal cuts didn’t influence who they plan to support.
Arlinda Hanna, 45, acknowledged DOGE measures were affecting swaths of people in Northern Virgina, even those who didn’t lose their job.
But, she said, “that’s not the only issue.”
A mother of three, Hanna said she was worried about Fairfax County Schools' policy allowing transgender youth to use bathrooms different from their sex-assigned at birth.
She cast her ballot for Earle-Sears when early voting began in late September.
“There is federal jurisdiction, and we've got to follow the law and feel like it's a shame that they are putting their agenda and beliefs over the law,” Hanna said.
“For me, I'm always going to vote morally by my (Christian) faith,” she added. “That's my compass.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Federal shutdown, DOGE cuts echo in Virginia governor's race
