New York, USA — Jamaican-born Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, who lost her bid to become the first woman governor of the state of Virginia, United States, has vowed to fight on, declaring she was “going nowhere”.

Earle-Sears was soundly defeated by her Democratic opponent, Abigail Spanberger, in the November 4, 2025 gubernatorial election, polling 1,442,817 or 42.3 per cent of the votes cast to the winning candidate’s 1,961,990 votes or 57.5 per cent.

“I don’t consider this a loss because… I’m a Christian first and Republican second and that’s the way it always should be — no political party has ever given their life for me,” the never-say-die politician told supporters in a speech after her loss.

“I’m not going anywhere — and neither are you,” she said. “I’m really not even supposed to be here, to think about it. I mean, I am an immigrant from another country, and yet you all have given me the opportunity to do this,” she declared, referring to Jamaica from where she was taken at age six to the Bronx, New York by her parents.

Born in Kingston, Earle-Sears, since migrating to the US, has chalked up an impressive career in business, gaining a Master of Arts degree in organisational leadership majoring in government and a Bachelors of Arts degree in English with a minor ineconomics.

She also served in the United States Marine Corps as a pilot and became the first black female elected to statewide office and subsequently Virginia’s Lt governor in November 2021, after earlier trouncing the Democratic candidate, notably from a black-dominated district that had not been won by a Republican since 1865.

“From the time my family arrived in America from Jamaica, we have realised and appreciated the opportunity that the US provided us,” she said after winning the Republican primary election in May that year.

“However, we never could have imagined that would include the possibility of being the second-in-command of the home of the American and world’s longest-standing democracy.”

But Sears faced fierce pushback, not the least from Democratic-leaning Jamaicans for her support of President Donald Trump, in her high-profile position as national chairman of Black Republicans for the Re-election of Trump campaign.

Openly campaigning with an assault-style rifle, she advocated for gun ownership, saying it deters crimes, not gun-control laws, which won her the endorsement of the National Rifle Association. Not surprisingly, Democrats labelled her as a right-wing extremist.

But early in the campaign for governor, Earle-Sears faced criticisms from within her own party on the type of campaign she was running. Notably, she was not endorsed by President Trump.

In the end, it was believed that she was undone by economic concerns, the long government shutdown, the layoff of thousands of federal workers and contractors, and the firing of several others by the Trump Administration, a large number of whom reside in Virginia.