WILLIAMSBURG — The Greater Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce hosted a Commonwealth Conversation with Virginia gubernatorial candidate and current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears on Wednesday, April 15 at the Williamsburg Inn.
The 2025 Republican candidate for governor immigrated to the United States at the age of six from Kingston, Jamaica, and served in the United States Marine Corps. She has served as the Vice President of the Virginia State Board of Education, a presidential appointee to the U.S. Census Bureau, co-chair of the African American Committee and the Advisory Committee on Women Veterans to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Earle-Sears served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2002 to 2004, representing the 90th District, and ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004 and for U.S. Senate in 2018. She was elected lieutenant governor in 2021 and is the first female to hold that office in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She is also the first Black female and first female veteran elected to statewide office.
Led by Cliff Fleet, President and CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the conversation focused on life lessons, her service to the commonwealth, her role as lieutenant governor and the path forward for Virginia.
When asked why she was running for governor, Earle-Sears said “because we have made so many gains since we’ve been in office. You might remember that we were totally shut down during COVID, and it was not COVID necessarily that shut us down, but the response to COVID. We saw that, for example, in Florida, we didn’t have to shut down as we did … We saw in Texas, you didn’t have to shut down as we did. So it matters who the governor is. It matters who makes the decisions.”
She cited the Youngkin Administration’s focus on addressing learning loss by investing in education and by increasing pay to keep teaching talent as one of its successes, as well as Virginia’s standing as a state that businesses choose to come to, which she credited to decreasing regulation and creating a welcoming business climate.
“I want to preserve all that, and I haven’t even touched health. I haven’t even touched transportation. We’re doing so well in those areas,” she said. “We have to preserve all of that, and we have to, I believe, run with the team that created all of that, and that would be our team. And businesses need stability, and I believe I’m the one who’s able to create that and continue that.”
She said her role as lieutenant governor has given her a unique perspective on government and how to work together to get things done.
“We are one Virginia. And yes, we have different ideas about the governor. We’re going one way … we’re going forward. Forward is the only way I know. It’s forward,” she said. “I remember saying to the governor, when we were first in office, and I was looking down at the Capitol. I said, Governor, you see that building down there? There are 140 CEOs. They’re not board of directors, they’re CEOs, and they all have an idea on how to govern, and so we got to work with them in some way.”
She also lauded the Youngkin Administration’s progress in healthcare and mental health, including shoring up Medicaid, investing in facilities, opening up avenues for treatment and getting help for law enforcement as policies that need to be continued.
“There’s just a lot of work to be done. It’s never, ever done, and as long as we have the funds to do it,” she said. “And by the way, we’re not going to tax you to get the money. We don’t want to do that. That’s why, if we keep attracting businesses to Virginia, we don’t have to raise taxes.”
As the conversation turned to energy production and usage, and Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, she talked about the value of data centers, and noted how Virginia’s standing in the world of cybersecurity, as well as being a home to facilities like the Pentagon and Wallops Island, meant it requires power that can’t rely solely on one form of generation.
“Now, you talked about our wind machines, we were able to sign the contracts for those machines at a time when the prices were low. We locked in those prices. We’re not going to stop it. I mean, it’s already almost 60% paid for, so we’re going to finish the contract. We need all of that power,” she said, but, citing a business she visited that required natural gas to support its, she added, “If we said only electric, we put him out of business. I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to grow businesses. I’m not trying to grow government. I’m trying to grow business. He has so many people, over 50 employees, and I want them to stay in the black, so we can’t cut ourselves off from power.”
Another asset to attract business is education, she said, and she highlighted the importance of not only training the best talent, but keeping it in Virginia.
“We have to have higher ed. There is no question about that. We’re competing again with other states. But on top of that, once they graduate, we want them to stay here,” she explained. “Unfortunately, we’re not having some of the jobs that are necessary for there are our kids to want to stay here, so we educate them here, and then other states benefit. We don’t want that. We want them to stay here.”
She also noted the importance of trades.
When the topic of upcoming changes in federal spending was raised, Earle-Sears said the administration had put the commonwealth in a good position, as it had protected itself by saving and investing funds and creating jobs.
“We don’t spend everything we get, we invest it in some form or fashion, or we put something aside,” she explained, adding, “We have put more people back to work than we ever had at one time in our history. And some of the folks who are leaving the federal government, they are coming into either our state government or private businesses. So we’re benefiting from that.”
When asked by an attendee what the difference would be between an Earle-Sears Administration and one run by her Democratic challenger, Abigail Spanberger, she cautioned that her opponent would grow government, defund law enforcement and challenge Virginia’s right to work state status.
“She would grow government, and I am growing business, because I understand that government doesn’t create jobs. Government can destroy jobs. And, by the way, if we as the government are doing an activity and there is already a private industry doing that, Why are we doing it? Why would the government be doing it? Because we’re not going to be doing it efficiently,” she said. “Businesses will make those decisions, whereas government will just keep growing and growing and growing. We can’t afford that. We need a balanced budget … and so either you’re going to tax the people to balance the budget, or you’re going to make better choices, but you don’t have to keep taxing the people.”
