Virginia back up to #3 on CNBC Top States for Business list: Cue Spanberger victory lap
CNBC moved Virginia back into the third spot in its Top States for Business rankings for 2026, after the state had dropped to fourth last year.
CNBC moved Virginia back into the third spot in its Top States for Business rankings for 2026, after the state had dropped to fourth last year.
I wasn’t going to write about the recent Abigail Spanberger interview with Politico in which she did a victory lap on data centers, largely because, it’s settled, she won, we’re not going to do anything.
The Virginia Drought Monitoring Task Force is using the bully pulpit of Gov. Abigail Spanberger to encourage us to conserve water use, for obvious reasons – we can’t seem to get it to friggin’ rain.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in an interview with VPM posted online on Wednesday that “no one single person should hold up the budget and potentially risk the entire economic stability of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced a legislative deal to create a retail weed market in Virginia, going back on a May veto after getting intense blowback.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger and House Democrats want us to do another study on the long-term impacts of the billions in tax breaks we give annually to the developers of hyperscale data centers.
A powerful environmental lobby is pushing back at Gov. Abigail Spanberger and House Democrats for siding with data center developers over tax breaks that cost the state $1.9 billion a year.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger and House Democrats are on the same page with a do-nothing approach to data centers that they hope will continue the $1.9 billion annual tax breaks that go to developers of hyperscale data centers in Virginia.
John Rocovich, the former rector of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors, and MAGA Congressman Ben Cline’s father-in-law, has filed a lawsuit challenging his removal, asserting that Gov. Abigail Spanberger lacked grounds to get rid of him.
I’m trying to figure out what is going on with the list of appointments to various college and university Boards of Visitors that we got from the office of Gov. Abigail Spanberger at the end of the business day on Friday.
We don’t take press releases or official statements as the final word. Digging in to get the whole story takes time and resources.