By Mark Hand

The Democratic nominee for governor, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, held a rally in Lynchburg on Tuesday afternoon as part of her “Span Virginia,” an eight-day bus tour with 40 stops across the state.

Spanberger arrived on her campaign bus around 1:30 p.m. and entered Three Roads Brewing in downtown to a cheering crowd.

In her speech, Spanberger said, “I’ve got a lot of fuel in the tank” as she looked ahead to the months on the campaign trail until the general election in November.

Spanberger’s visit was her first stop in the Hill City since last week’s primary elections in which state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and former Del. Jay Jones won the nomination for attorney general.

After her stop in Lynchburg, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate was scheduled to rally in Farmville later Tuesday afternoon and in Charlottesville on Tuesday night.

In November’s general election, Spanberger will face Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in the governor’s race. Hashmi will go up against Republican John Reid for lieutenant governor, while Jones will face incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares.

A day after plans to eliminate a large portion of the car tax in Lynchburg was scuttled by city council, Spanberger told reporters at the event that she supports efforts to get rid of the tax, or what she called the “most hated tax in all of Virginia.”

At a Lynchburg City Council meeting Monday night, Ward IV Councilman Chris Faraldi said his plan to eliminate the tax on vehicles assessed at less than $20,000 would no longer be moving forward after Mayor Larry Taylor told him he would no longer be supporting the proposal.

If elected governor, Spanberger said she would work with anyone — Democrats and Republicans — to get rid of the car tax, also known as the personal property tax on vehicles.

Getting rid of the tax, however, would mean the state figuring out how localities would make up for the lost revenue they previously received from the tax.

As for how President Donald Trump’s policies are affecting Virginia, Spanberger said the administration’s tariffs and trade wars are affecting industries across the state.

During her stop in Blacksburg on Monday, Spanberger said she had a lot of veterans come up to her to say they are fearful of how the Trump administration’s cuts in the Department of Veterans Affairs will affect them.

Spanberger also expressed concern with the Trump administration’s recently announced nationwide “pause of operations” for roughly 100 Job Corps centers run by private contractors, including the Old Dominion Job Corps facility in Amherst County.

She described the closure of the facilities as another example of how “reckless decisions out of Washington are impacting communities.”

“It has resulted in people losing their jobs,” while participants are missing out on what the future “could have been for them if they had continued in the program,” she said.

Spanberger, who was born in New Jersey, but grew up in Henrico County near Richmond, started her career as a federal law enforcement officer more than 20 years ago with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. In 2006, she joined the CIA as a case officer where she worked until 2014. After leaving the CIA, she worked for an education consulting firm before deciding to run for Congress in 2018.

Spanberger is married, with three children.