by James C. Sherlock

Organizing for Virginia Seniors, a pop-up PAC formed by New Jersey nursing home chain owners with uniformly awful facilities in Virginia, gave Gov. Spanberger $100,000 with a check written to her “Inaugural Committee” the day before the General Assembly met.  

This author wrote about that donation in January and asked that she return it because of its source. Good luck with that.

It appears that Virginians are inoculated against outrage at corruption among our state politicians. The politicians are, in turn, inoculated against caring what we think. They believe that campaign finance reform is for losers. Losers don’t get to have Inaugural Committees.

November 4 was election day. Spanberger Inaugural Committee 2026 was established on November 5.  

Once everyone knew who had won, the biggest donors to the Inaugural Committee were a different group from the biggest donors to Spanberger for Governor. The newcomers clearly felt the need to back a winner and correctly figured there was a list somewhere that they needed to be on.

Inaugural Committee Receipts

“Inaugural Committee 2026” has taken in $6,902,473 in contributions, starting with a balance of $0 on November 6, 2025.  The donors’ list is at the link.  

Tobacco giant Altria led the list, with a $100,000 check and a $42,675 in-kind donation for “travel and catering.” The jokes write themselves.

Inaugural Committee Expenditures

Spanberger Inaugural Committee 2026 appears to have paid off the remaining bills of Spanberger for Governor. She raised almost twice as much money as Winsome Sears, but it was not enough to pay the bills. Unfortunate, because she would have won with half the expenditures.

The Inaugural Committee lists $5,065,989 as campaign expenditures. Of that, $4,860,191 was for fundraising. Of that, she paid Markham LLC for $4,699,908 for event production. Washington, D.C.-based Markham LLC is a large event management and political consulting firm. 

Office Expenses were $464,725 of which Legal/Accounting/Bank fees were $430,555. MBA Consulting Group provided $49,050 in compliance services, including, one guesses, shutting down the campaign committee and opening the Inaugural Committee.

Bottom Line

Virginia’s elected officials will be in-your-face corrupt until they put limits on campaign donations. The best way for that to happen will be determined leadership from a governor who addresses the issue publicly.  

With luck, that will be Abigail Spanberger.  

Campaign finance reform is not a partisan issue, and it cannot feel good to have done what she has done here. Taking $100,000 from Organizing for Virginia Seniors won’t wash off.  

But owning it and leading the fight for campaign finance reform will make her a historic figure in Virginia.