Virginia’s political landscape saw a historic shift this week when a Black, Jamaican-born woman won the race for lieutenant governor and the son of a Cuban refugee became the state’s next attorney general.
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The fact that Winsome E. Sears and Del. Jason S. Miyares (Virginia Beach) are both Republicans reflects the inroads the GOP is making in the African American and Latino communities that have long favored Democrats, political analysts say.
By reaching those historic milestones first with a ticket led by Glenn Youngkin, the governor-elect, that was more diverse than the Democrats’, which featured two White men, Republicans now hold a symbolic advantage over Democrats, said L. Douglas Wilder, who as a Democrat during the 1980s and ’90s became Virginia’s first Black lieutenant governor and governor.
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“Republicans, they can say: ‘We not only one-upped you but you provided no reason why Democrats should continue to be blindly supported by those communities,’ ” said Wilder, noting how Sears and Youngkin have both vowed to fully fund historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, that have long been underfunded under Democratic leadership.
“Why didn’t Terry McAuliffe put money in his budget for them when he was governor?” Wilder said. “Why didn’t the current administration? The people are not stupid. I’ve always maintained that Democrats cannot win a statewide election without strong Black support and you can’t take the community for granted.”
Republican Winsome Sears projected to win lieutenant governor’s race
Sears, 57, in particular, is likely to have a high profile in the state that could help her influence issues she cares about, said Bob Holsworth, a longtime political analyst in Virginia.
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In addition to the HBCUs — funding for which Youngkin has said he plans to include in his budget — Sears is an advocate for government-funded school vouchers, which she has said could help Black students in communities with low-performing public schools get a better education.
The primary daily function of the lieutenant governor is to preside over the state Senate, where Democrats hold a slim 21-to-19 majority, and serve as a tiebreaking vote. With Republicans on their way to a 52-to-48 majority in the House of Delegates, it’s probable that some bills reaching the Senate will attract support from one or two more conservative Democrats in that chamber, making a tie and a need for Sears’s vote more likely, Holsworth said.
That is particularly so with respect to abortion restrictions, which Sears, a devout Christian, has said she supports. On that issue, Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey (D-Richmond), an antiabortion Catholic, has in the past sided with Republicans.
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Sears’s visibility on those votes will give her a bigger platform around the state, Holsworth said.
“There are certain places where her faith-based politics will get a hearing in the African American community,” he said.
How Youngkin shifted the vote toward Republicans across Virginia
The unofficial results from Tuesday shows that Sears has already caught the attention of Black voters in areas that historically have voted Democratic.
In heavily Democratic Norfolk, where Sears served as a state delegate in the early 2000s, the vote for Republicans on Tuesday was 13 points higher than it was in 2017, said Quentin Kidd, director of Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Civic Leadership.
Surrounding areas that are also mostly Black and Democratic — Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News — also saw a shift toward Republicans, albeit not as large, Kidd said.
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That indicates that Sears, who made direct appeals to Black voters who share her conservative views on abortion and gun rights, had impact, he said.
Traditional Democratic voters are so liberal on those issues that the voices of more socially conservative Black voters — especially Black women — are often not heard, Kidd said.
Sears “may be able to highlight that conservative viewpoint more and make it acceptable for it to be more of a part of the political identity of the Black voter in a way it isn’t so much now,” he said.
At the same time, Sears has broadened her appeal within the Republican Party. She started as an underdog seeking the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor, then found enthusiastic support from the party’s conservative base before connecting with enough moderate Republicans on her path to victory.
Republican Del. Jason Miyares elected Virginia’s first Latino attorney general
“I realize she hasn’t taken office yet, but if Winsome Sears is going to run for governor in four years, I don’t know what would stop her from being a formidable Republican candidate,” Kidd said.
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Robert Barnette Jr., president of the state chapter of the NAACP, said his organization welcomes Sears as lieutenant governor if it means she will be an advocate for Black issues who can make positive change happen inside state government.
Barnette said the NAACP has long advocated for more state funding for HBCUs, whose budget problems have made it harder to maintain campus infrastructure, hire top educators and provide students with services that better-resourced colleges and universities offer, such as paid internships.
“If lieutenant governor-elect Sears’s message is heard on that issue, then maybe we can make some progress in that area,” Barnette said.
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But, he added, he hopes she will work to address other long-standing issues in the community, such as criminal justice reforms that would eliminate unwarranted traffic stops that can lead to excessive force by police and the devastating effects that the coronavirus has had on African Americans.
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“These are critical issues no matter who is in leadership because they still plague our communities, and we want to make sure the lieutenant governor or the attorney general understand these issues and have a strategy to help us succeed,” Barnette said.
In Virginia, Latinos tend to vote for Democrats. But Youngkin’s trying to win them over anyway.
Like Sears, Miyares highlighted his ethnic background while campaigning — in his case being the son of a Cuban mother who fled Fidel Castro’s communist regime after her brother was targeted by government security forces.
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Miyares’s rise to the top law enforcement office in Virginia as a Republican state delegate who opposed in-state college tuition for undocumented students brought into the country as children reflects the fact that a growing number of Latinos in the state hold conservative views on social issues and crime, though they are still a minority in the larger community.
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In that way, Virginia is catching up to other states with growing but historically larger Latino communities, such as Florida or Texas, where Republicans have gained a foothold.
Arturo Vargas, the chief executive of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, said Miyares’s victory points to the success that Republicans have had in recruiting more candidates of color.
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“If you invest in candidates and you give people the chance, you can succeed in getting people of Latino background or African American background,” Vargas said, predicting that Virginia will see more Latino Republican candidates as the state’s fastest-growing community expands.
Miyares has not directly championed Latino issues. But his pledges to be tough on crime still resonate with Latinos who live in areas that have seen a rise in criminal behavior, said Yesli Vega, a Prince William County supervisor who chaired Youngkin’s Latino outreach effort.
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“Jason proved through his message and campaign that the Latino community cares about other issues,” Vega (R-Coles) said. She added that the story of Miyares’s mother’s escape from Cuba also resonates with Latino immigrants who’ve had to flee their countries. “He was very good at articulating the wearing away of law and order by Democratic control.”
Walter Tejada, who helped lead McAuliffe’s Latino outreach effort, said voters worried about feeding their children or getting access to health care see through the ethnic appeals made by candidates hoping to win favor during an election.
“No one knew that he had any kind of Latino roots until he decided to run for statewide office,” Tejada, a former member of the Arlington County Board who is Salvadoran American, said about Miyares.
“What we did know about him was that he’s a staunch Republican from the Virginia Beach area who runs in country club circles of wealth and privilege,” Tejada said.
Holsworth said Miyares and Sears reflect the fact that their communities have grown more complicated politically.
“This is a community that isn’t uni-vocal,” Holsworth said. “It’s important for the Republican Party to ensure that these communities become more politically numerous, more politically engaged. That they don’t have the same kind of problems Democrats have had in obtaining African American votes.”