Finally.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears filed paperwork Thursday to seek the Republican nomination for governor next year, a move that should set lots of other things in motion.
Democrats already have a nominee-in-waiting — Rep. Abigail Spanberger seems set to coast to the gubernatorial nomination unopposed — with multicandidate contests for lieutenant governor and attorney general already underway.
Republicans, though, have been frozen in a kind of stasis as they waited for either Earle-Sears or Attorney General Jason Miyares (or both) to make a move. Until one of them did, no one else could really do anything public, either. Now, Earle-Sears has finally broken that logjam. That will immediately open the way for other candidates for lieutenant governor — and should hasten whatever announcement Miyares intends to make.
The argument for Miyares to seek reelection: Early polls show Earle-Sears as a strong favorite for the Republican nomination next year.
The argument for Miyares to challenge Earle-Sears for the nomination: Running for reelection in hopes of running for governor has never worked out in the modern political era in Virginia, as Andrew Miller, Mary Sue Terry, Don Beyer and Bill Bolling all learned the hard way. That path requires a party to win three statewide campaigns in a row, something that neither party in Virginia has done since 1989.
Earle-Sears’ filing comes just days after a contentious appearance at the annual Labor Day speechifying in Buena Vista, where Democrats in the crowd booed her and she responded in what the Virginia Scope called a “combative” fashion. A widely circulated video shows Earle-Sears telling hecklers: “They’re telling a Black woman to get off the stage. They’re telling a Black woman to get off the stage. The Democrats are telling a Black woman to get off the stage,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell that to Kamala Harris? Why didn’t you tell that to Kamala Harris? The Democrats are telling a Black woman to get off the stage.”
That kind of thing will only fire up Republican partisans on her behalf.
If Earle-Sears is the nominee, it would seem to guarantee that Virginia will have something it’s never had before: a woman as governor.
Earle-Sears would also be in a position to make history in another way: No state has ever elected a Black woman as governor.
She’d also be Virginia’s first foreign-born governor since William Fleming, who was born in Scotland and served briefly (eight days) as Virginia’s third governor in 1781 between when Thomas Jefferson’s term expired and the legislature, which then chose governors, elected Thomas Nelson to a full term. Earle-Sears was born in Jamaica and moved to the United States when she was 6. (Westmoreland Davis, who was elected governor in 1917, wasn’t born in the U.S., either. He was born either in France, or on a ship in the Atlantic as his parents returned from a European vacation, but he was an American citizen from birth regardless of his birthplace, something neither Fleming nor Earle-Sears were).
More historical accounting: A governor’s race between two women would be a first in Virginia but not nationwide. Nine other states — Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Oregon — have already blazed that trail, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.
The key dynamic in next year’s governor race, no matter who the nominees are, could well be who’s sitting in the Oval Office. In the past 14 governor’s races, dating back to 1969, the party that won the presidential race the year before has lost the governor’s race in Virginia 13 times. The only exception was 2013, when Democrat Terry McAuliffe won the governorship a year after Barack Obama was reelected. (It’s also worth noting that McAuliffe didn’t win a majority of the vote that year, either.)
If that historical trend holds, then a victory by Kamala Harris in November would create a more favorable environment for Republicans in Virginia next year while a victory by Donald Trump would make it easier for Democrats to win next year.
The latest polls in Virginia
I write a weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, that goes out every Friday afternoon. This week I’ll look at the latest political polls in the state. You can sign up for that or any of our other free newsletters: