Inflation, corruption are top concerns for 1st District voters, Henrico CA Shannon Taylor says

Each of the major candidates in Virginia's U.S. Senate race and the three Congressional races in the WTVR viewing area has been invited on CBS 6 News at 7:30 p.m. with Bill Fitzgerald to talk about their priorities.

Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor, a Democrat who is challenging incumbent Republican Rob Wittman in the 1st Congressional District, said on Friday that inflation and corruption are voters' biggest worries.

"It doesn't matter where I am in the First Congressional District, whether we're here in the suburbs of Henrico, Chesterfield, or going over to the historic Triangle area, or even in the Northern Neck, everyone is saying the same thing: they are terrified about the rising cost of living of everything, gas, food, electricity, healthcare that is out of reach, and they're also very mad about the corruption that's happening in D.C.," Taylor said. "This race is about highlighting Rob Whitman, who's been in Congress for almost two decades, and how he has been using a corrupt system in D.C. to focus on himself and not focusing on the people he's supposed to serve."

WATCH: Virginia's 1st Congressional District race draws national attention

Taylor said inflation would be helped by eliminating tariffs, which in turn could create a way to help more people get health care benefits. She acknowledged a Democratic majority would be necessary to do so.

"We're going to repeal those tariffs that we all know were unlawful and illegal," she said. "We need to address the healthcare system that is broken. But while we fix it, we must be able to have healthcare affordable and accessible for people. And that includes talking about medical bill transparency. It means letting Medicare negotiate drug prices for our growing senior population in this district."

So pointed to the ongoing war in Iran as a major driver of economic pain for her potential constituents. "It means getting out of a war where every day our farmers are dealing with the high cost of diesel and with fertilizer, and every day Americans driving, whether they're driving their kids to school, to an appointment, going to the hospital themselves. It impacts us every day."

Taylor said she was focused on a number of other actions Congress could take. "It's about appropriating the funding that was already appropriated, but our current Congress would not allow it to be allocated," said Taylor. "It's about making sure that we can take other action, like taking the corruption out of D.C. It means banning stock trading. We need to start talking about term limits."

Taylor also weighed in on what guidelines, if any, the federal government might provide on the growth of data centers.

"Virginia has more data centers than anybody, except for maybe Texas," said Taylor. "The first thing is, nobody in the first congressional district should pay one dime more for energy or water that is being utilized by these data centers. They need to pay their own way. They need to start engaging in more renewable sources, like using solar panels at their locations, wind turbines, storage batteries. For those localities that are having those discussions, citizens deserve to have a right to be at the table to say, 'If we don't want one, there shouldn't be one,' because we have been hearing about certain impacts to communities that do have the data centers. I'm not using the word moratorium. Artificial intelligence has a data center component to it, but certainly for cloud storage-based companies like Google, like Microsoft, we need to start paying attention to what is happening in our areas and how our citizens feel about them."