After a contentious primary, Republican nominees for Virginia’s next governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general took the stage last night (Tuesday) in Vienna to try and present a unified image.
Incumbent Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the party’s gubernatorial nominee, and others criticized the Democratic slate of candidates but also repeatedly took aim at Zohran Mamdani, attempting to associate Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger with the mayoral candidate in New York City.
“You’ve seen where my old hometown has nominated a socialist,” Earle-Sears said. “… And make no mistake about it, the ideas our opponent has are socialist in nature because it’s all about what government is going to do and to take your money to do it.”
Earle-Sears urged Democrats to “use your own money to be kind,” reiterated her opposition to so-called “sanctuary” cities that limit cooperation with ICE, and her support for qualified immunity for police officers.
“We’re talking about government grocery stores, really?,” Earle-Sears said, citing Mamdani’s proposal to open city-owned grocery stores to provide access to low-cost food. “And everything is free… Eventually they’re going to run out of our money, because it’s our money they’re being free with.”
Earle-Sears wasn’t alone in attempting to link Spanberger to Mamdani.
“We will not allow Virginia to be led by someone who reminds me very much of our mayoral candidate for the Democrats in New York,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said. “And yet we have a winner, we have a Marine who knows how to fight, who understand what America is about because she understands that everything she values today, everything she thanks an almighty god for, came from this country.”
Months after Youngkin attempted to pressure GOP lieutenant governor nominee John Reid to step down, both men were on the stage together at the Vienna Volunteer Fire Department.
“I didn’t get on this stage because the establishment in Richmond likes me — you may have noticed that,” Reid joked. “I didn’t get up on this stage because some company gave me a million dollars and bought me and put me on this stage. I didn’t get up on this stage for any reason but to have allegiance to you, the voters of Virginia.”
Reid took aim at laws allowing transgender girls to play in girls’ sports.
“I’m the guy who, long before it became popular, stood up for women and girls and said we need to protect girls’ sports and the biological truth still has to matter when making public policy,” Reid said, though scientists have found that the biology used to determine sex is complex, not a simple binary.
Incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares, who’s running for reelection, also appeared at the rally — the first time that the Republican statewide ticket has appeared together this election season.
Protest objects to potential Medicaid cuts
Outside the rally, a crowd gathered to protest the Republican candidates, in particular expressing frustration with the bill heading to the House of Representatives that could see significant Medicaid cuts.
“The Republican [budget] bill that Youngkin and Winsome Earle-Sears are supporting would be devastating to Virginia, kicking 300,000 Virginians off their healthcare,” warned Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates for Virginia.
The reproductive rights advocacy group helped organize the protest, along with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Virginia, New Virginia Majority, Women’s March, and the Committee to Protect Health Care.
“My clients depend on Medicare and Medicaid subsidies, including for medical testing, transplants and surgeries,” said Joyce Rena Bumbray-Graves, a medical worker who said she has family members who are reliant on Medicare for support. “Medicaid is holding a lot of families together. They need to look around at the various people and see how much this is going to affect everyone.”
Federal workers in SEIU Virginia 512 met with Spanberger and the Democratic nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general, Ghazala Hashmi and Jay Jones, in Fairfax last Thursday (June 26). The Democratic ticket also stopped in Fairfax City and Tysons last week as part of a statewide bus tour to kick off their joint campaign.
Rally attendees weigh in
Inside the rally, some voters said they supported Winsome Earle-Sears because they believe taxes are too high.
“I love the sign ‘Axe the Tax,'” said local resident Sally Segal. “The property tax that we have here, the plastic bag tax, this trash tax thing… we’re just going nuts. It’s one after the other.”
Segal said she was particularly frustrated that the meals tax, voted down twice on the ballot in the 1990s and in 2016, was ultimately approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors without a referendum as part of the fiscal year 2026 budget.
“They raised our property tax again and I heard from a reliable source that next year property tax is going to really go up,” Segal said.
Segal and others at the rally said they believed the budget bill currently being debated in Congress would eliminate fraud in Medicaid. Others in Segal’s row insisted there would be “no Medicaid cuts” under the legislation.
“DOGE found billions of dollars of fraud is Medicaid and they saved a lot of it; billions, with a b,” said Segal. “They’re not going to affect kids starving.”
Others in the crowd supported the Republican ticket, but were less sure about the Medicaid issue.
“My uncle passed two or three weeks ago,” said MJ, a rising senior at West Potomac High School who asked to be identified by his initials. “He had a long battle with cancer. Before getting on Medicaid, he was paying for his treatments and his entire retirement savings were drained. He got on Medicaid and that helped him a lot. Without Medicaid, he wouldn’t have been able to get the treatment he needed.”
MJ said his family has shifted around on the political spectrum in recent years, saying they were “traditionally liberal” but voted for Youngkin in 2021 and for Donald Trump.
He said his own feelings are more divided — he supported Trump in the most recent election on his promise to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza — but wanted to hear both sides.
The student said his biggest hope for state legislation is providing more funding for security in schools.
“It was a kid younger than me that got stabbed,” MJ said. “We don’t have enough security. Our school had one school resource officer. If we had more armed security guards in the schools, in the communities, that would deter more activities from taking place.”
