Opinion | The New Democratic Brand

The caricature of a national Democrat is weak, woke and whiny. And both of these women kind of just don’t —— you can’t stick that to them. They tried to paint them as extremists in certain ways, but you can’t paint them as soft on crime like you’d want to. Abigail Spanberger did counterterrorism work for the C.I.A. These are not weak, woke, whiny — but at the same time, because they’re moms and they can talk about their kids and their concerns about schools and jobs and economies and safety and housing. I traveled on the trail with Spanberger a fair amount. And it was great to see that she could take those criticisms and just kind of jujitsu them to her advantage. So I agree that with governors in particular, there is this opportunity to redefine the brand because you’re not having to worry about all those team dynamics. And I think both of them did a good job, but all three of them, I just want to stress again, what did they focus on? All three of them focused on affordability.