Lt. Gov Winsome Sears, who is running for the Republican nomination to succeed term-limited Gov. Glenn Youngkin, may have a primary fight June 17, now that two former conservative Republican state legislators, Del David LaRock and Sen. Amanda Chase, have decided to challenge her.
Because Republicans are using the official state primary to nominate candidates, just like the Democrats, candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General must secure the signatures of 10,000 qualified voters on petitions, including 400 from each of Virginia‘s 11 congressional districts by April 3.
Sears began last year to wage her campaign for governor, so she is well on her way to reaching that goal. LaRock and Chase, however, only began gathering signatures in recent weeks.
While all three have conservative credentials, Sears opposed Trump‘s renomination for president in 2022 and did not endorse him immediately in March 2024 when it appeared he had locked up the nomination (as did Youngkin, Attorney General Jason Miyares and other major Republican elected officials nationwide).
What all three do have in common is each have not supported the GOP nominee in the November election, which violates the Republican Party “Loyalty Pledge.” According to the Party Plan:
“A voter who, subsequent to making a statement of intent, publicly supports a candidate in opposition to a Republican nominee shall not be qualified for participation in party actions as defined in Article I for a period of four (4) years. A candidate who, having properly filed to seek the Republican nomination in a primary or other nominating process, publicly supports a candidate in opposition to a Republican nominee, shall not be qualified for participation in party actions as defined in Article I for a period of four (4) years.”
In Sears’ case, she was angry with Republican US Senate candidate Corey Stewart for getting support from white supremacist groups and urged voters to vote for her, instead, as a write in. At the time, Sears was not a member of any Republican unit so had not signed the “Republican Pledge.” Only 5,000 voted write-in the Senate race out of 3 million votes cast (Incumbent Democrat Tim Kaine won handily). And, because write-in votes are not tabulated by name, it’s unclear how many votes were hers.
The issue came up briefly in her campaign for lieutenant governor in 2021 where she signed the Pledge to run at the unassembled convention and beat five other candidates to get the nomination. Sears won election in November 2021 becoming the first African-American woman to win a statewide office in Virginia history.
LaRock lost an 8-way primary for State Senate in District 1 in June 2023 to Timmy French. Embittered by French tapping into Democrat votes for the open primary, LaRock waged a write- in campaign for himself for State Senate that fall, swiping 8.6 percent of the vote – which is unusually high. French did beat the Democrat, but the Republican Party in Clarke County, where LaRock lives, banned him from participating in party activities for four years, including that of the 6th Congressional District. He showed up at a recent Republican dinner in Winchester seeking signatures, according to a source.
Chase, a self-styled “Trump in Heels,” has twice been sanctioned by the Chesterfield County Republican Committee – the first time in 2019, when she ran as an Independent for re-election to the State Senate (and won) and last year because she promoted a write-in campaign for herself against Glen Sturtevant, who beat her for the 2023 GOP State Senate nomination Sturtevant went on to win the seat and there were only 213 write ins out of 81,499 votes.
Late last year, Chase moved to Appomattox County to run in a special election for the State Senate seat of John McGuire, who had to resign because he won election to the U.S. House in the 5th District. Chase, however, was allowed to run in the party-run firehouse primary for McGuire’s seat, and also ran for Governor in the statewide convention in 2021 (and lost), because the Chesterfield sanction apparently only barred her from participating in Chesterfield GOP activities.
And, because the RPV State Central Committee in December opted to use the state-run June primary for statewide races, Virginia law trumps the RPV loyalty pledge and allows LaRock and Chase to run in the GOP primary for governor.
All Republican units in Virginia are using the state run primary and not party-run processes because of a newly enacted state law that requires all “qualified voters” to be allowed to participate in such processes – which is a difficult challenge when it comes to military and overseas voters.
It’s very evident that the “Republican Pledge” is not as important in Virginia GOP politics as is the “Trump Pledge,” which seems to make or break a candidate in a primary. And, both Chase and LaRock never waivered in their support of Trump as did Sears.
One activist wrote in support of Chase on the Virginia Republican Discussion Forum on Facebook:
“I am supporting her. Sears has no understanding of government…She will do the same as has always been done. She does not have a clue at what change would look like. Of course that really speaks to our total legislature. Trump is an example of changing policies and thinking anew. Sears will never have a clue.”
Another activist supported LaRock, stating on the same forum: “I voted for Youngkin and Sears in 2021, I’m very disappointed that they are not doing more to thwart the Marxist attempts by the legislature. They’ve kind of just thrown up their hands and said, “oh well!” I don’t need someone who makes deals with the enemies of my Liberty!”
But most comments on this page seem supportive of Sears getting the nomination.
The key question is whether either Chase or LaRock will avoid the Republican primary altogether and file petitions to run as independents in the fall, which gives them two extra months to gather the 10,000 signatures. If either does that, it would swipe votes from Sears and give the governor’s mansion to prospective Democrat gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger.
But activists with both the Chase and LaRock campaigns say that will not happen. Whether they help Sears or not is another question given their histories of bucking the GOP.
Ken Reid is a former Leesburg Town Council member, Loudoun Supervisor, and Republican activist who broke the GOP Pledge once to wage an independent campaign for the Board of Supervisors in 2007 – but removed his name from the ballot and backed the GOP incumbent.
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