Abigail Spanberger is less known for her oratory than for drilling down into the work of government and bucking her party leadership.
On Tuesday night, she has one of the riskier speeches in politics to figure her way through.
The 46-year-old Virginia governor, the first female chief executive of her state, was House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ pick to rebut a State of the Union address Tuesday that President Donald Trump warned would likely again be very long.
The onetime CIA officer doesn’t talk in slogans or catchy promises, once instead describing herself to CNN in an interview as “an optimistic, starry-eyed pragmatist.” She refused to support Nancy Pelosi for speaker and once pushed back on former President Joe Biden’s overarching economic push by saying no one had elected him to try to be a new Franklin Roosevelt.
Spanberger will deliver the speech live from Colonial Williamsburg, with an aide saying that she picked the
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