The Republican Party of Virginia has officially announced that Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears is the party’s nominee for governor.
The party’s announcement comes after they received an insufficient amount of signatures to make the ballot from state Sen. Amanda Chase in the final minutes before the deadline on Thursday.
“As the sole candidate to qualify for the Republican primary ballot on June 17th, Sears will be the Republican Party’s nominee for Governor on the November 4th ballot,” RPV said in an announcement Saturday afternoon.
“I am deeply grateful for the support of the tens of thousands of Virginians who worked to earn our campaign’s place on the ballot this fall,” Sears said in a statement after the announcement.
With Sears and Spanberger set to face off in November, Virginia will be electing the first female governor in the commonwealth’s history. If Sears wins the election, she will be the first Black female governor in the United States.
In addition to Chase, former Del. Dave LaRock failed to gather enough signatures to make the primary ballot.
LaRock announced before 4 p.m. Thursday that he failed to secure the 10,000 signatures required to make the June Republican gubernatorial primary ballot. In his statement, he partly blamed Gov. Glenn Youngkin for endorsing Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears for his inability to gain any traction.
“The current Governor jumping in early to designate his successor did not make it easy for us to give the Republican voters a real choice in the primary — but we came close,” LaRock wrote.
Youngkin congratulated Sears for securing the nomination Saturday.
“Winsome Earle-Sears is the American Dream,” Youngkin wrote in a social media post. “Her lifetime of service to God, Family, Country and Commonwealth has prepared her to take the Governor’s mansion this fall and keep Virginia winning. Proud of my good friend and amazing partner [Winsome] for officially securing the Republican nomination.”
Chase said the party needs to support the nominee moving forward.
“I have said from the beginning, we need to support our nominee, whoever the nominee is that comes out of this race,” Chase said in an interview with Virginia Scope Saturday. “She’s our nominee. We’ve had our primary…that’s over. Now it’s time to move forward.”
Virginia Democrats released an ad attacking Sears minutes after the announcement from RPV.
“She’s so far right, she’s wrong for Virginia,” the ad says.