Trump’s Endorsement of Virginia’s GOP Nominee for Governor—and a Little History

Amidst questions about actress Sydney Sweeney’s jeans ad and her reported Republican voter registration, President Donald Trump was asked Sunday if he was going to endorse Virginia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in her race for governor against former CIA case officer and Democrat member of Congress Abigail Spanberger. 

The reporter “said the quiet part out loud” for many Virginia voters, as they were wondering the same thing. The president’s response tells us a lot about the race, his rationale behind endorsements, and the perception that there was acrimony between the two.

Let’s start with the last part first. In November of 2022, Sears was asked during an appearance on the FOXBusiness channel if she would support Trump’s attempt to retake the presidency in 2024, which he had not made official at that point. 

“I could not support him. I just couldn’t,” Sears told host Neil Cavuto. “The voters have spoken, and they’ve said they want a different leader,” apparently referring to his loss to Joe Biden in 2020. 

She also said that she lauded the president’s accomplishments related to black unemployment, education, and public safety while in office. Hardly the words of a “Never-Trumper,” but it was sufficient for many to put her in that camp. It should also be noted that once Trump was the GOP nominee in 2024, she frequently campaigned for him alongside GOP congressional candidates.

Prior to her securing the GOP nomination to run for Virginia governor earlier this year, the whispers were that because of that FOXBusiness interview, the president wouldn’t support her, and therefore, she couldn’t win. This was based on the acrimonious primary battle in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District where Trump endorsed State Sen. John McGuire over Republican incumbent Bob Good for Congress and McGuire won. 

The reason this story is illuminative is that the presumption was that Trump’s endorsement of McGuire was because, early on, Good had endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the GOP nomination for president instead of Trump. However, well on into the primary campaign, the president had not “picked sides” and even had acknowledged Good at a rally in Richmond. 

McGuire, it should be noted, was part of the onstage cast of that rally, leading the Pledge of Allegiance. The president’s endorsement didn’t come until later when one of McGuire’s campaign leaders met Trump at another rally and he asked her about McGuire, “Can he win? I can’t endorse him if you don’t think he’d win.” 

Trump was assured that McGuire could win, and the endorsement was delivered. McGuire won the primary by 374 votes out of nearly 63,000. 

So, returning to Sunday on the tarmac and Trump’s answer to the Sears endorsement question. It was, “I would, yeah. The candidate she’s running against is not very good, but I think she’s got a tough race. But I would, yeah.” 

Putting it into the context of the president’s interest in endorsing candidates who he believes have a chance to win, it sounds like he thinks that a Sears victory is more likely than the recent polls we have reported on indicate. 

Or, to put it in the words of University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato, “The happiest person [about the president’s tacit endorsement] is Earle-Sears. The second happiest is Spanberger” (presumably because Spanberger will fundraise against it).

What’s next? Let’s see if the Sears campaign can close the current contribution deficit and if the next poll (one made up of likely voters, because polls of registered voters aren’t as accurate since so many of them never show up on Election Day) has the race as close as the previous ones and then ask the president again.

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