The Democratic Party of Virginia is launching a new ad Thursday attacking Republican gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears after Virginia lost its ranking at the top of CNBC’s Top States for Business list.
Virginia fell from first place last year to fourth this year after a new metric was introduced to the process: federal job cuts.
Virginia has the second-highest number of federal employees among any state in the country. Before Trump took office in January, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management said there were more than 140,000 federal employees in Virginia.
CNBC cited these workforce cuts as the reason for Virginia’s drop.
Earle-Sears downplayed the federal job cuts during an event earlier this year. The Democratic group, MeidasTouch, first posted the audio of her comments.
“How many here have ever lost a job? Oh, you mean it’s not unusual? It happens to everybody all the time? Okay,” Earle-Sears said. “The media is making it out to be this huge, huge thing. And I don’t understand why.”
DPVA used the quote from that video for the new ad.
In a statement to Virginia Scope last week, the Earle-Sears campaign blamed Democrats for Virginia’s drop in the rankings.
“This frighteningly is a harbinger of things to come if Democrats continue to stand in the way of smart economic policies that foster growth and opportunity,” said Peyton Vogel, the press secretary for Earle-Sears. “Our competitive advantage nationally has already been weakened with liberal control in the General Assembly. It’ll be hard-working Virginians who pay the price if Abigail Spanberger is governor.”