Abigail Spanberger stays laser-focused on closing economic message amid last-minute 'curveballs' in Virginia

NORFOLK, Va. — After Abigail Spanberger took the stage at a campaign event Sunday afternoon here, she delivered an impassioned speech casting next week's gubernatorial election as a chance to reject President Donald Trump and the chaos she said his administration's policies have sowed in Virginia's economy

NORFOLK, Va. — After Abigail Spanberger took the stage at a campaign event Sunday afternoon here, she delivered an impassioned speech casting next week's gubernatorial election as a chance to reject President Donald Trump and the chaos she said his administration's policies have sowed in Virginia's economy.

It's a message Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, has remained laser-focused on in the closing stretch of the campaign, even as a series of new outside developments and lines of attack threatened to upend the race against Republican Winsome Earle-Sears.

“We are so excited about what this election means,” Spanberger said at a restaurant in downtown Norfolk owned by NBA referee Tony Brothers, one stop on a bus tour across the state in the race’s closing days.

“And that’s not because we don’t see the hardships of this moment. It is because we see the hardships of this moment. It is because we know that across Virginia, we have hundreds of thousands of federal workers and government contractors and Virginia who are terribly impacted by a government shutdown,” Spanberger said. “It is because we have the threat of hundreds of thousands of Virginians losing their health care because of legislation passed in Washington that we are looking toward this election.”

Much of Spanberger’s gubernatorial campaign in the blue-leaning state has focused on affordability, public safety and abortion rights, along with attacks on Trump's policies. But the former congresswoman has been forced to confront a trio of issues that emerged over the past month that Earle-Sears has tried to used to close their polling and fundraising gap before Nov. 4.