It was supposed to be layup for Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
Virginia’s first black woman lieutenant governor has Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) seal of approval and was on her way to winning her party’s nomination when her momentum was blunted by two MAGA Republicans who jumped into the race. Then came whispers her campaign had lost focus and was suffering from a turnover problem.
“It’s trouble and that’s what you also saw in Kamala Harris’s run for elected office,” former Democratic Gov. Doug Wilder, Virginia’s first black governor, told the Washington Examiner. “She had this tremendous turnover and it has an effect. It’s not that people shouldn’t pay attention to candidates, but we don’t know the reasons people are leaving. It’s obviously got a negative effect and I think that is a problem for Winsome.”
Earle-Sears recently brought in a new consultant firm to revamp her campaign. But ColdSpark, a Pennsylvania-based firm that ran former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s unsuccessful presidential campaign, has the potential to cause more harm than help.
The gubernatorial hopeful was already eyed with mistrust by MAGA over comments she made in 2022 about how the Republican Party should move on from President Donald Trump. Trump in turn has referred to her as a “phony.” To make matters worse, the president has made it clear that any person or company who has worked with “Birdbrain” Haley, as he puts it, is persona non grata.
