Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger is betting that her party’s path back to power runs through rural Virginia — and maybe, eventually, rural America.
With a week left before voters head to the polls, Spanberger is barnstorming deep-red counties once written off by Democrats, making her case to communities that overwhelmingly backed Donald Trump in 2024. Her pitch is pragmatic and direct: that Trump’s policies have hurt the very people who helped elect him, and that she can do better by focusing on health care, trade, and jobs.
“We can win anywhere in this state if we talk about the right issues,” said Roberta Thacker-Oliver, chair of Virginia’s rural Democratic caucus. “It’s the things that keep people up at night — health care, education, good jobs, being able to take care of their family.”
Spanberger’s campaign trail looks nothing like the blue strongholds most Democrats stick to. Her “Span Virginia Bus Tour” rolled through the Appalachian region this summer and is now winding through the state’s central and western counties. In Lee County, she toured a hospital at risk of closing. In Buena Vista, a small town where Democrats haven’t seriously campaigned in a decade, she marched in the Labor Day parade.
She talks less about party labels and more about what people see around them — shuttered clinics, struggling farms, and fewer jobs. Spanberger has blamed the Trump administration’s “reconciliation megabill” for forcing several rural health facilities to close and promised to expand telehealth to fill the gaps. On tariffs, she’s been blunt, calling them “a massive tax hike on Virginians” and pledging to keep state-level trade partnerships alive while seeking new export markets. “Hope is not a strategy,” she told one audience, outlining her plan to appoint a Secretary of Rural Affairs if elected.
The pitch is aimed at voters who have drifted away from Democrats over the past four decades — people who once backed the party of labor and agriculture but now associate it with cultural elitism. Spanberger’s campaign is a test of whether a Democrat can win their trust again.
“She’s different,” said Joy Powers, a local Democrat and farm equipment dealer from southwest Virginia. “There are a lot of politicians who try to get rural votes where they can. But Abigail Spanberger listens.”
Still, the climb is steep. A recent Washington Post–Schar School poll shows her trailing by double digits in the state’s rural regions, where Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin won by 75 points in some counties just four years ago. Her opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, is running on a familiar mix of pro-Trump populism and conservative values.
Even some Democrats acknowledge the brand problem. Former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, now an independent, told reporters that Spanberger “comes across much more sensible and reasonable” than most Democrats, but that the party’s national image remains “toxic” in rural America.
Spanberger is undeterred. She tells crowds that she’s not trying to change who she is — only to meet people where they are. “Every rural area wants Democrats to come here more often,” said Harry Rubenstein, chair of the Buena Vista and Rockbridge County Democrats. “In that respect, she’s been the best, by far.”
