One needn’t be knee-deep in the Democratic Party’s latest bout of soul-searching and blame-throwing to see the contrast with New York’s likely next mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who rose to prominence by proposing rent freezes, city-run grocery stores, and free buses. But when I spoke with Spanberger, as she rode her campaign bus from Norfolk to Franklin, a few days after the Charlottesville rally, she dismissed the comparison. “With all due respect, there’s a reason people keep having to pay attention to the mayoral race of, admittedly, a very large, very blue city. It’s because it is just getting covered non-stop in the press,” she told me. “But, you know, as a candidate to be the governor of Virginia, I don’t want to be disrespectful—like, I don’t care that much about what happens in the city of New York.” The point, she said, was that the jurisdictions, and the races, are just too different. “In Virginia, we have the largest naval base in the world, but agriculture’s our No. 1 private industry,” she said. “We have the largest gap between the wealthiest county and the poorest county of any state in the nation. We have it all here. And so I think that when people are looking toward ‘What does it look like to campaign in a place as diverse and vibrant, and as interesting and as challenged, as Virginia?,’ I hope the takeaway is to be of the place and of the people you’re trying to serve.”