Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, who is running to succeed Governor Glenn Youngkin in the 2025 gubernatorial race, defended her record amid attacks from her Republican challengers in the race and stressed the need to continue the “successes” of the current administration into the future during an exclusive interview Monday on The John Fredericks Show.
In addition to Earle-Sears, Republican candidates Amanda Chase, Dave LaRock, and Merle Rutledge are running in the GOP primary for Virginia governor on June 17, 2025. The winner of the GOP primary will go on to face Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger in the general gubernatorial election on November 4, 2025.
Since launching his campaign, Earle-Sears’ purported closest challenger in the primary, LaRock, has criticized the lieutenant governor on multiple fronts, including her past remarks regarding Corey Stewart, who ran against Democratic U.S. Senator Tim Kaine in the 2018 U.S. Senate election, and miscommunication surrounding her stance on the dismantling of Confederate statues across the commonwealth.
Asked to respond to LaRock’s criticisms regarding her lack of support at the time for Stewart’s campaign against Kaine, Earle-Sears said she stood by her past remarks of calling out Stewart for his admiration at the time of Paul Nehlen, who Earle-Sears said was an “avowed Nazi.”
With regard to LaRock’s claims that she supported dismantling statues of Confederate figures across the commonwealth, Earle-Sears pointed back to her on-the-record remarks of defending such statues while also acknowledging that a former campaign staffer of hers who spoke out against the statues falsely attributed their beliefs on the matter to that of Earle-Sears and was terminated immediately.
“I’m the one who said that we needed to keep the statues up. I am on record – on radio, on television, in print – from my own mouth saying we need to keep the statues up. We also need to build other statues of equal grandeur and talk about what all these statues mean…We’re going to keep them up because you can’t erase history like that. You have to talk about history,” Earle-Sears said.
“Now, I did have a person in my campaign who thought he was speaking for me that we needed to tear the statues down. I fired him. I fired him the day that it went out,” Earle-Sears added.
Another criticism from her opponents Earle-Sears addressed during Monday’s interview was her relationship with President Donald Trump and how she plans to unify the Republican party in the commonwealth and “bring MAGA together.”
Noting how she supported Trump in all of the years he was running for president, Earle-Sears confirmed she has since met with the president about her gubernatorial campaign and her vision for Virginia.
“I supported the president in 2016, I supported him in 2020. In fact, I went out to get black voters to support him because we knew he had the better ideas when it came to the economy, we knew that there was more money in our pockets. We know that he cared about America first…I’ve lost family because of my support for him, I’ve lost friends who have never come back…But I supported him anyway, because I believe what’s right is right,” Earle-Sears said,
“The president and I have met and we talked about some things…and I’m going to leave it at that,” Earle-Sears added.
When it comes to Virginia’s response to the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the federal government by eliminating portions of the federal workforce in Washington D.C., Earle-Sears was confident in the commonwealth’s business climate and contributions to unemployment under the Youngkin administration to assist individuals who may be searching for further employment.
“Just about everybody has lost a job [in their lives]. Nothing in this life is guaranteed…We don’t want people to lose their jobs, but these things happen. What we are doing in Virginia is we’re preparing for it. We have jobs. There are over 250, 000 high paying jobs that are available,” Earle-Sears said.
“We have jobs and we have money for you. If you are unemployed until you can get that job, you don’t have to worry about that. We have put $1.2 billion back into the [unemployment] system…We are ready for all contingencies because that’s what leaders do. We are self-sufficient in Virginia and we’re going to be that way and continue that way when I am governor,” Earle-Sears added.
Speaking to her vision for Virginia if she were to become governor, Earle-Sears said she would continue the “successes” of the Youngkin administration, specifically when it comes to creating an inviting business climate for entrepreneurs.
“Virginia has been named the number one best state to do business. When we first came into office, we were number 45. It was that hard to even start a business…We’ve done a lot of things to make sure that businesses want to come, that Virginians who are here that want to start a business can do so,” Earle-Sears said.
Earle-Sears also pointed to her support of promoting school choice for how she plans to improve education options for students across the commonwealth.
“Education lifted my dad out of poverty. Education will lift all of us out of poverty…I’m always going to be for education, and I want parents to make the decision about where to send their children to school…I think competition will bring education up. It’s not a money issue,” Earle-Sears said.
Pointing to her former role serving as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and presiding over the Virginia Senate as lieutenant governor, Earle-Sears said the decades-long relationships she has formed with state lawmakers will ultimately serve to her advantage of continuing the successes of the current Republican administration.
“I am going to continue the successes of a Republican administration. I’m not running away from what Governor Youngkin has done. We are going to continue…I am a former delegate, I’m a former legislator, I have relationships with the folks on both sides of the aisle,” Earle-Sears said.
“We are going to continue the successes of our administration,” Earle-Sears added
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Image “Lt. Gov. Winsome Earles-Sears by Lt. Gov. Winsome Earles-Sears.
Put the Confederate Monuments back, should have never been moved.