Abigail Spanberger was sworn in as Virginia’s 75th governor on January 17, 2026 and wasted no time pivoting from campaign rhetoric to raw power, signing ten executive orders on her very first day. What was sold as a “moderate” message on the trail looks very different when a freshly inaugurated governor starts rewriting rules with the stroke of a pen.
One of her first acts was to rescind the previous administration’s directive that had encouraged state and local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, a move Democrats call compassionate and critics call an open invitation to lawlessness. Conservatives across the Commonwealth and beyond rightly ask why voters were promised pragmatism only to get sanctuary-style policies that hamstring law enforcement.
Spanberger also announced plans to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade scheme that forces up-front costs on energy producers and inevitably trickles down to families at the utility bill. Democrats will say rejoining RGGI is about climate responsibility, but this is how Washington-style economics raises living costs and siphons money from working Virginians into bureaucratic slush funds.
Beyond immigration and energy, her day-one package included orders aimed at housing, health care spending reviews, and broad nondiscrimination policies in state employment — all framed as “affordability” and “equity.” The real pattern is clear: regulatory expansion, more administrative control, and the kind of top-down governance that pretends to help while reshaping markets and incentives in favor of political priorities. Voters who accepted the “moderate” label have every right to feel betrayed.
Conservative leaders and commentators are sounding the alarm, calling Spanberger’s blitz a full-throated turn left and warning that these policies will cost Virginians their paychecks, their safety, and their freedoms. If Republicans don’t meet this with a vigorous political fight and a clear alternative focused on lower costs, stronger law enforcement, and limited government, hardworking Americans will pay for these “day one” showpieces for years to come.
