PURCELLVILLE, VIRGINIA — Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee for governor, campaigned in Loudoun County on Saturday, rallying supporters at Patrick Henry College in a rare GOP push into one of Virginia’s most closely watched swing counties.
Speaking before a few hundred voters gathered in the college gymnasium, Earle-Sears urged supporters to “finish what we started” and carry the Republican momentum from 2021 into next week’s election.
Once a model of Virginia’s suburban shift leftward, Loudoun is now showing the first hints of movement back, a potential sign that the GOP’s message on parental rights, education, and safety still resonates in northern Virginia’s fast-growing exurbs.
The event also served as a show of unity for the Republican ticket, with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Attorney General Jason Miyares, and lieutenant governor nominee John Reid joining Earle-Sears on stage to close out the campaign’s final weekend.
Loudoun’s shifting vote totals underscore that change. Although then-Vice President Kamala Harris still carried the county in 2024, the numbers told a more complicated story: she won more precincts than in 2020, but Democrats drew nearly 10,000 fewer votes, while Donald Trump gained about 10,000. The overall swing toward Republicans narrowed what had once been a comfortable Democratic margin and rekindled GOP hopes that the D.C. suburbs may again be competitive.
The result showed how Loudoun’s shift fits into a larger story. Once a battleground during former President Barack Obama’s campaigns, the county had become reliably Democrat, until now. In 2024, Virginia’s modest swing toward Republicans was driven largely by northern Virginia, long a Democratic stronghold, which moved more to the right than the nation overall.
For Earle-Sears, campaigning to succeed Youngkin, Loudoun’s exurbs, and conservative enclaves like Patrick Henry College, represent a crucial test of whether the coalition that fueled the governor’s 2021 upset can still deliver statewide.
“People’s hearts are turning, especially when it comes to the kids and the schools,” said Kathleen Hannon, 55, a Loudoun County resident who cited classroom policies and law enforcement among her top issues. “She just needs to win over enough in northern Virginia to take the state.”
George Hollis, 79, said Loudoun’s transformation mirrors Virginia’s own political story, and that it’s still a place where Republicans can win if they turn out their voters.
“I think Loudoun’s been the linchpin for years,” Hollis said. “If it goes red again, the rest of the state follows. I just wish this crowd was about three times bigger.”
At the back of the gym, Rebecca Phillips, 20, a journalism student who recently moved to Virginia from California, said Loudoun has become a flashpoint for cultural debates that resonate far beyond the state.
“I think [Winsome Earle-Sears] can win, but it’ll be close,” Phillips said. “Abortion and women’s privacy with the transgender issue are really important to me. At the very least, parents’ rights are being stripped away, and Loudoun has been the center of that fight.”
Earle-Sears’s rally in Purcellville came as Democrats staged their own high-profile push: on Saturday in Norfolk, Obama joined Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate on the campaign trail, underscoring how seriously both parties are treating Virginia’s off-year elections.
Introducing Earle-Sears, Youngkin cast the race as a moral and political crossroads, warning that Democrats’ support for attorney general nominee Jay Jones, who has faced backlash over violent remarks he made years ago, revealed “how far the party has fallen.” He also referenced Obama’s campaign stop in Norfolk earlier in the day for Spanberger, contrasting the Democratic push with Republicans’ closing message in northern Virginia.
“Elections have consequences,” Youngkin told the crowd. “When we go down the right path, Virginia thrives.”
He said Virginians had “a chance to choose common-sense conservative values” again and pointed to the administration’s record of economic growth.
“We’ve seen $143 billion of investment come to Virginia, more than the last five administrations combined,” he said. “That’s what happens when we choose the right path.”
Notably, neither Youngkin nor any of the Republican candidates mentioned Trump, signaling a deliberate effort to keep the message centered on Virginia rather than Washington.
Earle-Sears delivered a fiery speech centered on patriotism, faith, and contrast, brandishing a Virginia flag as she warned that “forward is the only way I know, there’s only darkness back there, and Abigail Spanberger represents the darkness.”
Her message focused on schools, taxes, and public safety, the same issues that helped Republicans regain footing in Loudoun County after years of Democratic dominance. She vowed to scrap the car tax, keep taxes low, and defend Virginia’s right-to-work law, mocking Democrats who “think you haven’t paid enough” and calling clean-energy policies “solar and wind nonsense.”
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Earle-Sears accused Spanberger of hypocrisy for continuing to stand by Jay Jones, citing his past remarks, and charged that the Democrat “sold Virginia down the road for $150,000,” alluding to the donation from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee to her campaign. On law enforcement, she touted endorsements from more than 80 sheriffs and said Spanberger “voted against the Laken Riley Act” and “wants to keep the border open.”
She closed by invoking Virginia’s founding ideals, declaring that “the party of Lincoln nominated me, an immigrant to this great country, to be lieutenant governor.” As the crowd cheered, she added, “Tuesday’s coming, we haven’t come this far to only go this far.”
