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LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, RICHMOND
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, RICHMOND
Virginia Business// August 29, 2024//
Earle-Sears is a woman of firsts: the first Black woman and immigrant to hold statewide office in Virginia and the commonwealth’s first female lieutenant governor, serving as president of the state Senate and occasionally casting tiebreaking votes. She is widely expected to seek the Republican nomination for governor in 2025.
A U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former state delegate, the Jamaican-born Earle-Sears took an unusual path to the Virginia State Capitol in a career that has included owning an appliance, plumbing and electrical company and managing a homeless shelter. In her 2021 campaign for lieutenant governor, she made a splash by running ads that featured her holding a military-style rifle. Besides her support for gun rights, she has been a vocal advocate for school choice programs, including taxpayer-funded educational savings accounts and charter schools.
Although Earle-Sears previously campaigned for former President Donald Trump, she has been critical of him in recent years, writing in a memoir she released in August 2023 that she doesn’t believe he should seek a second term.
