“The Year of the National Security Mom”: Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill are the “Emerging Model of Leader”

“The Year of the National Security Mom”: Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill are the “Emerging Model of Leader”

Today, the New York Times Opinion section highlighted how Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill’s national security backgrounds have provided them with exceptional credentials to be strong leaders for their states. Both Spanberger and Sherrill have been relentlessly focused on making life better for hardworking families in Virginia and New Jersey – including their own – by lowering costs, protecting health care, and creating jobs.

Read more on why Spanberger and Sherrill are the next generation of leadership: 

• As political origin stories go, Abigail Spanberger, a former House member from Virginia who is now the Democratic nominee for governor, has an enticing one. It hits the sweet spot of making her seem simultaneously exceptional and relatable.

• Ms. Spanberger’s story is not flashy. But it introduces her to voters as a candidate with an unlikely mix of credentials, especially for a Democrat: a down-to-earth suburban mom of three who spent years tracking terrorists, narco-traffickers and other transnational bad guys. Her biography helps convey a gut-level grasp of Virginians’ everyday anxieties about schools and crime and providing for their families and experience making tough calls in life-or-death situations involving national security. Message: Here is a leader both formidable and approachable, tough and caring, driven by her commitment to service.

• Ms. Spanberger is not the Democrats’ only mom with a butt-kicking résumé on the ballot this year. Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a friend and erstwhile roommate of Ms. Spanberger’s, is also running for governor. Ms. Sherrill has two boys and two girls — all teenagers, God help her. She is also a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a former Navy helicopter pilot who flipped her Trump-loving congressional district blue in 2018.

• Welcome to the year of the national security mom. Headlining this political off-year’s two hottest races, Ms. Spanberger and Ms. Sherrill stand as an emerging model of leader, one whose experience combines maternal nurturing with “Who’s your daddy?” badassery in a way that confounds partisan molds. It is one Democrats hope will help their party shed its loser status in November, then keep gaining traction.

• In operational terms, national security moms say their time in the military and intel worlds gave them a mission focus, which boils down to identifying a goal and concentrating all your resources on achieving it.

• Ms. Spanberger, Ms. Sherrill and Ms. Slotkin came into office swinging at their own caucus leaders, as three of the 15 Democrats who did not support Nancy Pelosi for speaker of the House. “People in Congress sometimes act as if standing up to leadership is a really hard thing or a real act of courage or bravery,” Ms. Sherrill told me. “I’ve seen acts of courage and bravery, and that doesn’t fall into that camp for me.”

• It’s worth noting at this point that the presumed appeal of national security moms isn’t that national security is a top policy concern for voters. Except in rare circumstances, American elections rarely turn on issues of national security or foreign policy. This is more about stature, toughness, courage. Ms. Spanberger posits that for voters sizing her up, her work at the C.I.A. can serve as a “shortcut to ‘She’s tough. She’s hardworking. She’s thorough.’”

• As Ms. Sherrill sees it, people “are wanting to see leaders who are going to take on the really tough challenges that we have now and drive — in my case the State of New Jersey — on a different path forward than we see coming from Washington.”

• That said, a national security bio also makes it harder for Republicans to portray Democratic candidates as lefty extremists. “With someone who was previously a federal agent and then in the intel community, it’s clearly contradictory for someone to lob the reductive attacks about Democrats not being focused on public safety,” Ms. Spanberger, who served in federal law enforcement before joining the C.I.A., told me.

• The mom part brings its own advantages. Talking about your daughter’s theater camp (Ms. Spanberger) or about your teenage rugby players’ concussion risk (Ms. Sherrill) can help reassure people that you aren’t all sharp edges and elbows.

• As the first major contests after a presidential election year, the governors’ races in New Jersey and especially Virginia are considered bellwethers of the national political mood and referendums on the occupant of the White House.

###