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Lieutenant Governor-elect Winsome Sears spoke at a campaign rally for Republican congressional candidate Tina Ramirez in Chesterfield Tuesday night. Sears did not endorse Ramirez, however, as the nomination contest continues to heat up in a Richmond-suburban House district.
Ramirez is currently seeking the nomination in Virginia’s seventh congressional district unless redistricting moves her to another area when the final lines are drawn. Other filed candidates include State Sen. Bryce Reeves (Spotsylvania), Del. John McGuire (Goochland), former McDonnell staffer Taylor Keeney (Goochland), and state Sen. Amanda Chase (Chesterfield), who will be officially announcing her candidacy Wednesday morning after already filing the paperwork at the end of October.
During her brief speech and visit with Ramirez supporters in Chesterfield on Tuesday, Sears emphasized the importance of Republicans keeping up the momentum that helped them win back the House of Delegates and all three statewide races earlier this month.
Specifically, she talked about her experience in the early 2000s when she was elected to serve one term in the House of Delegates. “What I saw back then in 2001 was as soon as we won, everybody went home and the next year we started losing seats,” Sears told the crowd of roughly 100 Republicans Tuesday night. “We can’t do that, we have all this momentum. Get involved, stay involved.”
Sears steered clear of outright endorsing or even talking about Ramirez before she introduced her to the crowd. The lieutenant governor-elect avoided talking about federal elections altogether, talking mostly about the state legislature and encouraging Republicans to stay engaged across Virginia.
She briefly talked about her new role presiding over the state Senate and casting tie-breaking votes when necessary. “We are going to get some tie votes,” Sears said while citing the 52 times that the current lieutenant governor had to cast a tie-breaking vote. She said that if she were lieutenant governor during the last four years, those laws would not have been passed. “We are going to change things,” she repeated.
It is unclear if Sears or Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin will use their political capital to endorse in 2022 congressional nomination races. Sources with knowledge of the situation, however, say that candidates are not expecting any endorsements to come from Youngkin.
Many of these congressional candidates are in the state legislature where the Republicans have a slim 52-48 majority in the House and the Democrats have a 21-19 majority in the Senate. If Youngkin wants to advance his agenda in any way at all, he will need Republicans to remain in lockstep with each other. An endorsement of one over some of the others could potentially derail that.
Sen. Chase endorsed Sears during the lieutenant governor nomination race earlier this year. Chase told Virginia Scope in an interview that when she saw Sears was attending the event for Ramirez on Tuesday, she sent her a text to remind the lieutenant governor-elect that she is also in the race.
Chase and Reeves will be working in the state Senate chamber with Sears this upcoming session.
The seventh congressional district has been represented by Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-Henrico) since she defeated Republican incumbent Dave Brat in 2018. Spanberger won reelection by a larger margin in 2020 over state Del. Nick Freitas.
Youngkin won the district by 12 points in this year’s election according to the Virginia Public Access Project, giving Republicans hope for flipping the House during midterms next year.
In new ads released Tuesday attacking Spanberger and Rep. Elaine Luria (D-HD02), another vulnerable House Democrat, the American Action Network (AAN) said that the 2021 election results in Virginia are a direct reflection of voters disapproval of President Joe Biden. This is perhaps a preview of what Virginia Democrats will be facing in their battle to keep the House next year.
“Virginians spoke up loud and clear: they just can’t afford anymore of the left’s big government spending,” said AAN Communications Director Calvin Moore on Tuesday. “Spanberger and Luria should heed that warning and change course before their tax and spending hikes inflict even more economic damage on working families.”
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