Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP nominee in Virginia’s 2025 gubernatorial race, blasted recent reports painting a bleak picture of her campaign.
Earle-Sears told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive statement on Wednesday that “Washington chatter” will not “distract” her from improving Virginians’ lives if she is elected as governor. Earle-Sears’ comments come after Politico reported on Tuesday that several Virginia GOP strategists and officials have privately raised concerns about whether Earle-Sears’ campaign will be successful.
“I am focused on what matters: making Virginians’ lives better,” Earle-Sears told the DCNF. “Washington chatter won’t distract me from that. We’re going to talk about putting more money in people’s pockets, keeping them safe, and protecting Virginia from Spanberger’s disastrous record and even more daunting vision for the Commonwealth.”
Some Virginia Republicans have expressed uneasiness over Earle-Sears’ gubernatorial candidacy, citing things such as Democratic opponent Abigail Spanberger raking in a higher fundraising haul than her, as well as Earle-Sears giving a controversial speech in 2023 where she compared diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts to slavery, according to Politico.
“A lot of us are looking at it and saying, ‘I’d do it differently,’” one anonymous senior GOP staffer told Politico. “She’s a good person, she’d make a good governor, and she’s just not as strong of a candidate as we’d like to have.”
Some recent polls have shown Earle-Sears trailing behind Spanberger in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. An early poll from Roanoke College released in February shows Spanberger leading Earle-Sears by double-digits in the state’s November gubernatorial race.
Current Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is ineligible to run for reelection in 2025, due to the Constitution of Virginia prohibiting the state’s governors from serving consecutive terms. Youngkin endorsed Earle-Sears in November 2024, claiming that she has been “an outspoken advocate for commonsense conservative principles and policies.”
Still, Spanberger’s campaign has massively outraised the Republican’s in the first three months of 2025. Spanberger reported notching a $6.7 million fundraising haul during the first three months of the year, which was more than double the $3.1 million Earle-Sears raised, according to data collected by the Virginia Public Access Project.
The outcome of Virginia’s 2025 gubernatorial election is anticipated to be a bellwether for the 2026 midterms and how the nation feels about the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has enacted sweeping staff cuts across multiple federal government agencies. The state is notably home to over 320,000 civilian federal employees.
Though Trump swept all seven swing states in the 2024 presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris won light-blue Virginia, notching 52.1% of the vote to Trump’s 46.3%.
“No matter what Sears says — from drawing two primary challengers earlier this year to churning through consultants to Donald Trump’s former co-campaign manager calling her campaign ‘amateurs,’ it’s abundantly clear that Winsome Earle-Sears is a weak candidate with a flailing campaign who is unable to unite the Republican Party,” Maggie Amjad, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Virginia, said in a statement shared with the DCNF. “While Virginians deserve a governor who fights for the Commonwealth, Sears is only focused on appeasing Trump and pushing her extreme agenda that’s wildly out-of-step with Virginians.”
When reached for comment, Spanberger’s campaign referred the DCNF to the Democratic Party of Virginia for comment.
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