Spanberger backed a bill in Congress that would have overridden Virginia’s right-to-work law.
For Republican lieutenant governor Winsome Earle-Sears, undoing the Commonwealth’s status as a right-to-work state is a nonstarter. Virginia GOP’s leading candidate for governor in 2025 believes her likely Democratic general election rival, Representative Abigail Spanberger, should come clean with voters about her support for legislation in Congress that would have done exactly that.
“We Virginians deserve a straight answer from Congresswoman Spanberger: Does she support our Right to Work law? End of story,” Sears, a Jamaica-born immigrant, Marine veteran, and Virginia’s first woman lieutenant governor, told a crowd of Virginians at an economic summit on Friday in Richmond that also featured remarks from her Democratic opponent. Sears pledged that if elected governor, she will “fiercely protect” Virginia’s current right-to work law, which has been on the books since 1947.
In her opening salvo in this cycle’s gubernatorial election, Sears is taking aim at Spanberger’s decision while in Congress to vote in favor of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would heavily regulate independent contracting law and override right-to-work laws in 27 states.
“If you want to join a union, that’s fine. We’re not against unions, per se,” Sears told National Review on Monday in a wide-ranging interview following up on her Friday remarks. “What we are against is forced unionization, and that’s what Congresswoman Spanberger wanted to have happen without the state even getting an opportunity to debate.”
Previous progressive-led attempts to overhaul Virginia’s right-to-work law – which protects workers from being forced to join a union — have drawn opposition from even many Democrats in the state legislature.
Added Sears in her Friday remarks: “A politician who dodges questions about right to work during a campaign, only to repeal it as governor, would undermine everything that makes Virginia a top-ranked state for business.”
A Spanberger spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NR about whether in keeping with her support for the PRO Act, she would overhaul Virginia’s status as a right-to-work state if elected governor. And as local outlets reported following the event, Spanberger did not directly respond to Sears’s barbs, instead opting to zero in on expanding childcare for working families and investing in K-12 education.
Friday’s event marked the first time this cycle both leading gubernatorial candidates stumped in the same room ahead of the commonwealth’s off-year elections in 2025. Virginia is the only state that bars its chief executives from serving consecutive terms, meaning GOP Governor Glenn Youngkin – another staunch supporter of the commonwealth’s right-to-work legislation — cannot seek reelection this cycle.
The outgoing governor endorsed Sears’s gubernatorial bid following Republican attorney general Jason Miyares’s announcement that he will seek another as the commonwealth’s top law enforcement officer. Miyares had teased a potential run for governor to National Review over the summer, and his decision to run for reelection means Republicans will avoid a messy primary ahead of a likely general election race against a well-funded Democrat.
Keeping Virginia red at the statewide level will be a top priority for the Republican Governors Association under the helm of its new chairman, Georgia governor Brian Kemp.
Sears faces tough competition in Spanberger, a former CIA officer first elected to Virginia’s 7th congressional district in 2018. The lieutenant governor’s focus on preserving Virginia’s status as a right-to-work state signals an early offensive posture against Spanberger on economic and labor-related issues ahead of what’s expected to be a very competitive statewide race roughly two years into the second Trump administration.
“Tell us who you are and let us make the decision. But don’t lie to us,” Sears told NR, while taking a jab at her opponent for tacitly praising her own administration’s achievements in her Friday remarks. “Do you know where she told the truth? When she talked about the successes of the Youngkin administration — the Republican team. She says she wants to build on that, after she talks about us being number one state for business, etc.”
“Why would we want to change teams?” she said, joking that “apparently, we’re both running on the successes of a Republican administration.”
Sears’s focus on Spanberger’s labor-related congressional record in the early days of the 2025 gubernatorial race comes weeks after President-elect Donald Trump nominated Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R., Ore.) to serve as Labor Secretary. The daughter of a Teamster who just lost reelection to her Oregon House seat, Chavez-DeRemer has drawn unusual praise from Senate Democrats for her support among union leaders as well as her decision to vote in favor of the PRO Act, as NR reported last week.
“Being pro right-to-work is not anti-union,” Sears said in her Friday remarks. “Being pro right-to-work respects every worker’s right to choose whether joining union without coercion or financial penalty.”
Beyond labor-related issues, Sears tells NR she plans go on offense against Spanberger for voting in lockstep with Democratic leadership while in Congress and for being out of step with Virginians on social issues. “Has she said anything about biological men being in girls’ sports? Protecting women in sports? No,” she said. And she touted the current Republican administration’s success in raising teacher pay, boosting investments in K-12 schools, creating jobs, and boosting law enforcement officers’ morale by preserving qualified immunity.