McLEAN, VA — Greenberries, the independent coffee shop in this tony suburb of Washington, D.C., is bustling at 10 a.m. on Election Day 2025. One reason: the federal government shutdown, currently on Day 35, has left many government workers furloughed, and thus with nowhere else to be.
The 2025 shutdown has avoided media attention, perhaps because Democrats caused it, and public attention, perhaps because of massive news exhaustion, but here in Northern Virginia, it’s a big deal.
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About 175,000 federal workers live in Northern Virginia, including about 80,000 here in Fairfax County. Some of them are furloughed. Some of them are afraid of losing their jobs. Some are forced to work overtime as their colleagues are furloughed during this longest shutdown in American history.
And even though it is caused by Democrats’ refusal to allow a vote on a clean funding bill, the shutdown is helping Virginia Democrats, because Republicans are getting blamed.
“Republicans are less willing to negotiate,” says Simran, a McLean resident in her 30s, who voted for Democrat Abigail Spanberger for governor.
Benjamin, a middle-aged voter in McLean, said he voted Democrat up and down the ballot because “the federal government needs to get a message that they need to do things differently.” He then specifically cited the shutdown, the cost to federal workers, and “the SNAP benefits being cut off for folks who need them.”
Who does he blame? “Of course, Republicans. They’re not even opening the House for a conversation…. The Speaker of the House is not willing to bring the members in for even a debate. He has not sworn in the Democratic congresswoman who was elected because of the Epstein files.”
Linda, a Catholic woman in her 70s, is a longtime Republican Party member and blames Trump for the lockdowns. “It’s horrendous. It’s stupid. It’s horrible,” she says of the lockdown.
“Where is he? He’s overseas. He’s not here talking to anybody. The Democrats say he’s not talking to anyone. Well, he should stay here and force everybody to get together, put aside his own views, listen, and get it done. It’s ridiculous.”
“I definitely blame the Republicans for that,” says Sia, a federal employee in his 60s who wouldn’t tell me how he voted. “They’re controlling all three” [branches], he says after voting. “They’re controlling the Congress, they’re controlling the White House, and they’re controlling the judicial system, so I can’t blame anybody else.
Spanberger and her former colleagues on Capitol Hill understand this dynamic. That’s part of the point of the Democrats’ shutdown: Anger Northern Virginia independents, who tend to dislike Trump and distrust national Republicans.
Spanberger’s final ad is largely about her “public service,” noting that she has always worked for the federal government.
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This shutdown helps Spanberger. By tomorrow, there will be very little upside to Democrats from this shutdown. That’s when you can expect Democrats to come around and pass a clean spending bill, while demanding a vote on extending their COVID-era Obamacare subsidies.
The Democrats’ shutdown will have been long, pointless, and disruptive, but if Spanberger wins, it will have accomplished its aim.
