Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s victory made headlines across the nation, almost overshadowing the significant new Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears, a Marine, a small business owner, a state legislator, and a Republican.
President George W. Bush appointed her to the Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee on Women Veterans to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Sears also happens to be black — the first black and female Lieutenant Governor in the state. But Sears said that is not what is important.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I am black. And I have been black all my life, but that’s not what this is about,” Sears said in her victory speech.
“What we are going to do now is be about the business of the Commonwealth,” she said. “We have things to tend to.”
“We are going to fully fund our Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” Sears continued. “We’re going to have safer neighborhoods, safer communities, and our children are going to get a good education.”
“I’m telling you that what you are looking at is the American dream,” Sears said.
An enthusiastic crowd cheered Sears’s patriotic speech, at one point leading the crowd in a “USA! USA!” chant.
Sears came to the United States from Jamaica as a child with her family. Aside from owning an appliance and plumbing repair store in Virginia, she also worked for the Salvation Army.
“When I joined the Marine Corps, I was still a Jamaican,” Sears said. “But this country had done so much for me, I was willing, to die for this country.”
Sears’s own description on her campaign website is insightful:
Winsome was elected to a majority Black legislative district! No other Republican has done that in Virginia since 1865: She consequently also became the first (and still only) Black Republican woman elected to the House, the first female veteran, and the first legal immigrant woman.
Winsome is a mother, wife and is proud to have served in the United States Marines. She was also a hard-charging Vice President of the Virginia State Board of Education and received presidential appointments to the US Census Bureau (where she co-chaired the African American Committee) and the Advisory Committee on Women Veterans to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
In addition to her Masters degree, Winsome also built a successful business as a trained electrician and understands the importance of helping small businesses thrive. However, Winsome is most proud of her community work leading a men’s prison ministry and as director of a women’s homeless shelter for The Salvation Army.
Her website also listed her priorities for Virginia:
- Create good paying jobs
- Cutting costs for families
- Open and strengthen schools
- Uplifting black Virginians
- Keeping Virginia safe
- Serving out veterans
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