Lt. Gov. Sears visits Pulaski Co.

By WILLIAM PAINE

Patriot Publishing

Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears paid a visit to the Innovation Center in Fairlawn on the evening of Monday Sept. 16, for a reception organized by the Republican parties of Pulaski and Montgomery Counties and the City of Radford.

Earle-Sears recently announced her intention to run for the Republican nomination for Virginia’s 2025 Gubernatorial election and those in attendance were eager to show their support for her campaign.

Chip Craig, Chairman of Radford’s Republican Party, made the opening remarks and noted the presence of Delegates Jason Ballard (42^ndDistrict), Delegate Chris Obenshain (41^st District) and Delegate Jeff Arnold (46^th District) at the reception. His counterparts, Chairman of the Pulaski County Republican Committee, Joseph Goodman and Nick Lowery, Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party, were also in attendance.

Other notable attendees included Radford Sheriff Mark Armentrout, four out of five members of the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors, four out of five members of the Pulaski County School Board, one member of the Radford School Board and Debbie Lyons of the Dublin Town Council. The ladies of the Pulaski County Republican Women’s club supplied heavy hors d’oeuvres for the occasion with some assistance from the Radford GOP.

District 5 State Senator Travis Hackworth introduced Lt. Governor Earle-Sears noting that, “You never have to worry about what she’s thinking, because she’s going to tell you what she thinks.”

Earle-Sears began her presentation by introducing her husband, and fellow Marine, Terry (Terence) Sears.

Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor dedicated the first part of her speech to the importance of winning the upcoming election for Morgan Griffith for Congress, Hung Cao for Senate and most especially Donald Trump for President. She spoke about Kamala Harris’ recent and frequent changes in policy and expounded on the hardships caused by runaway inflation under the current administration.

Earle-Sears made a point of stressing the importance of absentee ballots in the upcoming election.

“We’ve got to start voting absentee because that’s what they (Democrats) do,” she said. “There were 400,000 people on the southwest side, mostly Evangelical, who did not vote in 2020. This is why we have to do what we have to do.”

After speaking about the upcoming national elections, Earle-Sears talked about her own campaign for governor.

“Some of you may have heard, I’m running for governor,” said Earle-Sears. “We have got to continue what the Youngkin administration has begun because there’s still work to do.”

Earle-Sears went on to speak about the importance of the next governor of Virginia and the “report card” of the current Youngkin administration.

“We brought back $130 million to the New River Valley to make sure that if businesses want to build, there are sites that are ready,” said Earle-Sears. “You see what happened here (Innovation Center). That’s part of the money. We just gave a Brownfield grant to Radford that is going to rebuild certain areas. For every dollar we give to Radford University, they bring back $6 and they generate $430 million in this area. They’re doing some really good things.”

“We have been doing other things in K through 12 education,” Earle-Sears continued. “We opened the schools and we have increased money for teacher pay 13%. That is unheard of! We have given money for CTE training because not everybody wants to go to college. You know, when I was in the Marine Corps I was a journeyman electrician and diesel mechanic.”

“Remember, we had the masks on, and it was crazy times?” Earle-Sears asked the audience. “It was a mess. We can’t go back to that, folks. You know what closed? Our schools, our houses of worship and our businesses.  It was the government response to COVID that closed it right?  So, it matters who sits in the big chair. (Former Governor Ralph) Northam was the one who closed our schools, closed our businesses and told us how we were going to worship. We’re not going back to that. It’s a little thing called freedom!”

Winsome Earle-Sears insisted that elections in Virginia are secure, due in part to the efforts of the Youngkin administration. Earle-Sears mentioned one bill in particular that was signed by Governor Youngkin that requires voting districts to clean up their voter rolls on a monthly basis.

“There were people who were still on the voter rolls who had been dead since 1960,” said Earle-Sears. “We found people who were on the rolls and should not have been, because they’re not citizens … over 6,000 of them. They’re off now.”

Earle-Sears spoke about another recently passed law which requires every ballot to be counted in the same precinct where it was cast.

“The final thing is that we have paper ballots,” said Earle-Sears. “We use the machines to count but we use paper ballots. That’s our backup.” She also noted that voting machines in Virginia are not connected to the internet.

A question-and-answer period followed at the end of her speech and an audience member asked whether she’d ever been a Democrat.

“Of course I was a Democrat,” she responded. “I was a Democrat when I was 24 because that’s what they told me I’m supposed to be. We had our last baby, I’d just gotten out of the Marines, my husband was still in and I heard (Michael) Dukakis come on with his commercial and I thought, ‘I don’t believe in any of that.’”

She went on to say that George Bush’s plan to reduce taxes and reduce abortions were more in line with her thinking.

“And then he (Bush) said something that blew my mind,” Earle-Sears recounted. “He said, ‘If all you ever have is welfare, you will never have anything to pass on to your children’. And I said, ‘Oh my god, I’m a Republican.’ I’ve been a Republican ever since.”

“Then in 2020 I worked to help Donald Trump get elected,” she continued. “By the way, I lost family members who still won’t talk to me because I voted for him. And then the second time, I worked to bring black people into the Republican Party.”

Even so, Winsome Earle-Sears admitted that she wasn’t always Trump’s biggest fan.

“I saw some things that he said, and I thought, OK, maybe he and Biden need to retire,” she recounted. “Then I saw him at the convention and I heard a changed man. I heard a man who said, ‘If it hadn’t been for God, I would not be here.’ He said, ‘Miracles happen every day and I am one of them.’ Then he said, ‘I humbly ask for your vote’ and I said that’s a man I can support. All those policies, they’re good, but I needed to hear that because I’m a Christian first before I’m anything else, and a Republican second.”

Winsome Earle-Sears ended her talk by saying, “I was elected 20 some years ago as a Republican in a district that was 62% Democrat and against a 20-year incumbent whose father had the seat for 11 years before him. Nobody would give me any money and I had only three months to run as a Republican in a 58% black district … and we won. I became the first black Republican elected to represent a black district since 1865. Then you elected me the first black, female immigrant veteran in the Commonwealth of Virginia!”

The room full of the Republican faithful erupted in applause at this last statement made by the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. One might assume from this reception that Winsome Earle-Sears has a very good chance of securing the Republican nomination for Governor and that 2025 may see the first black, female, immigrant, veteran to become Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.