Republican Winsome Earle-Sears is on the defensive in Virginia’s race for governor

The Associated Press
August 10, 2025, 9:09 AM

HOPEWELL, Va. (AP) — Against an olive drab backdrop in a barbecue joint filled with the aroma of pulled pork and the sweat of a Virginia summer, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears told voters she was running her campaign for governor like a military-style operation.

The lieutenant governor, a former Marine, said she would protect Virginia just as she did America. The way Earle-Sears tells it, not all attacks come from soldiers.

Earlier that day, she was asked on national television why Republican President Donald Trump had not endorsed her and whether she stood by her description of him as a liability back in 2022, before his return to the Oval Office about two years later. She challenged the question as backward-looking and called the interview by CNN’s Manu Raju a trap. The interview quickly unraveled into a squabble.

“They ambushed me to talk about things that are so in the past, when we’ve got to move forward,” she told a crowd gathered at Saucy’s Sit-Down Bar.B.Q, a mainstay in Hopewell. … Her words in both settings, while cast in military terms, reflected a campaign on the defensive.

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