Nov. 11, 2025, 11:26 a.m.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Nearly 200 miles from Washington, the federal workforce cuts shake even the far reaches of Virginia.
In Newport News, Virginia, a manufacturing town hours south of the nation’s capital, workers have felt the pain of layoffs and the government shutdown.
“Now, we’ve got a flux of unemployed workers that have been working all their life, hard workers, go to work every day,” said Charles Spivey, president of the United Steelworkers Local 8888 chapter in Newport News.
In a focus group hosted by Majority Democrats and moderated by Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones (D), union leaders and members expressed their struggles due to federal workforce cuts. The focus group convened less than a week after federal employees impacted by the Trump administration’s layoffs turned out for Democrats in Virginia’s statewide elections.
Spivey said that by allowing the government to shut down, “we have hurt some people in the last couple weeks.”
Exit polls following the 2024 election showed nearly half of union households voted Republican, an upward trend from previous presidential elections.
Aaron Woodard, president of IBEW 1340, the electrical workers’ union, said the Democratic Party’s priority is not necessarily moving away from labor, but it could focus more on issues important to that bloc such as opposing right-to-work laws and allowing collective bargaining in the public sector.
Union leaders criticized the party for a lack of follow-through on promises made during campaign season.
“Sometimes in the past, we’ll endorse a candidate, and we don’t necessarily always get the support we were promised during the election process,” Woodard said.
Luke McCann, a member of the steelworkers’ union, said he saw Democrats make progress on kitchen-table issues in last week’s elections.
“For a long time, there’s been a feeling of detachment that comes with politics and things like that,” McCann said. “It’s good to actually be getting back to the idea of dealing with things that actually affect every single person.”
— Erika Filter
efilter@nationaljournal.com
