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A Virginia Republican delegate targeted in a death threat last week is firing back at Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger, pointing to her viral “let your rage fuel you” comments as fueling division.
Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., has denied her comments had anything to do with a threat against state Del. Kim Taylor of Petersburg, and that they were meant in the context of fueling activism like letter-writing and voter engagement efforts.
But on Monday, Taylor wasn’t buying that explanation:
“[Spanberger] told supporters to ‘let your rage fuel you’ and now she wants to pretend she didn’t mean it. Sorry, Abigail, you don’t get to walk it back,” Taylor told Fox News Digital.
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“This is the same violent rhetoric we’ve seen from Democrats for years and Republicans have paid the price: Steve Scalise nearly killed on a baseball field, President Trump targeted by an assassin, Charlie Kirk murdered in cold blood.”
Taylor said a real leader will unite Virginia and “lead with courage, not rage.”
She said Spanberger therefore “disqualified” herself from the governorship.
Taylor’s campaign said it received a message last week from Michael Ray Strawmyer, 33, of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, in which he threatened to kill the lawmaker and ranted about Republicans “ruining” the country.
Strawmyer made a remote court appearance in Dinwiddie earlier Monday, according to the Petersburg Progress-Index, and has been held at a state prison in South Hill near the North Carolina line.
Monday’s comments from Taylor were in response to pushback from Spanberger – after people began drawing their own connections between her “let your rage fuel you” comments and Taylor’s threat.
A Spanberger spokesperson told the Progress-Index that Taylor took her remarks out of context and said the candidate “immediately condemned this horrific threat.”
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“She will continue to condemn any attempt to make light of or justify political violence of any kind,” the spokesperson said.
When asked about Spanberger reciting the “rage” phrase again at a recent campaign event outside Richmond, the campaign official said “context” is important and that it was meant to illustrate the need to “write postcards and knock doors.”
Taylor made waves two elections ago when she unseated now-state Sen. Laschresce Aird, D-Petersburg, in what is one of the most Democratic-majority cities per capita in the commonwealth.
Taylor defeated Aird by about 500 votes in 2021 and narrowly won reelection in 2023 by about 50 votes.
Her 2025 opponent is Kimberly Pope Adams, who ran against her in the 2023 nail-biter. In comments to the Virginia Independent, Pope Adams criticized the Trump administration and cuts to social services in Surry and Prince George, which are more rural than the city of Petersburg.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee for governor, also responded to Spanberger’s original remarks by invoking Virginia’s longtime tourism slogan, “Virginia is for Lovers,” contrasting it with “rage.”
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