With DEI under attack, here's how Virginia's diverse slate of candidates talk about identity

Yahoo

8 hours ago

It's the most diverse Republican ticket in Virginia history.
In her bid for the commonwealth's top seat, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears could become the country's first Black woman governor. John Reid, as the nominee for lieutenant governor, is the first openly gay person on the state's ticket. And Jason Miyares, running for a second term as attorney general, was the first Hispanic man elected to statewide office in 2021.
But while Earle-Sears and Reid have spoken openly about their identities, they, alongside the Republican party, have distanced themselves from diversity efforts more broadly.
'Here's my 'pride' flag,' Reid wrote on the social media platform X earlier this month alongside a photo of the U.S. flag. 'My goal as a modern Republican leader in Virginia is to find common values and goals amongst diverse people and help deliver a prosperous, peaceful, upstanding, and free society.'
'I'm running to work for you — not for headlines, and not for identity politics,' Earle-Sears posted on X in April. 'Yes, I'd be Virginia's first Black female governor. But that's not why I'm in this race. I'm running to lead and lift up every Virginian.'
Republicans have simultaneously taken a hard line stance against initiatives such as DEI. Miyares was among the state attorneys general who signed onto a letter calling on Costco to remove its DEI practices.
Earle-Sears's campaign did not respond to repeated requests for an interview for this story. But some analysts see her messaging as an intentional distancing of her identity from her politics.
For example, she often highlights her experience as an immigrant from Jamaica over her experience specifically as a Black woman, said Jatia Wrighten, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who researches state legislatures, Black women and leadership. In one campaign ad, Earle-Sears says: 'A buck-seventy-five. When Dad came to America, that's all he had. But for a little girl in Jamaica, that little bit of change changed everything.'
'That is very different than how (other) Black women candidates talk about themselves and talk about their identity,' Wrighten said. 'Oftentimes, their identity is seen as a strength, and I think with (Sears), because she is a Republican Black woman, it's strategically beneficial to her if she underplays the fact that she is a Black woman.'
Democrats also are running a diverse slate of candidates. A Black man and white woman are running for attorney general, and the crowded lieutenant governor field includes two Black men, an Indian-American woman, a Pakistani-American man, a Latino man and a white man. But that pool of diversity is less of a talking point than it might have been a few years ago, experts say.
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In the last decade, Democrats at the national level have held onto their multiracial coalition, but Republicans have gained ground among non-white voters. In the 2024 presidential election, about 20% of Republican voters were people of color, compared with 10% in 2012.
There's little evidence to suggest that in 2025, most voters feel compelled to vote for candidates who match their own identity, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, a political analysis newsletter from the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Virginia's gubernatorial race already is historic — with the state guaranteed its first female governor. Earle-Sears' opponent is Abigail Spanberger, a former U.S. House member and intelligence officer who is white.
'There's not really any evidence to think that Winsome Earle-Sears should get some sort of bonus among Black voters for being a Black Republican,' Kondik said. 'There's been a bit of erosion for Democrats and Black voters, but you still expect Black voters to vote pretty overwhelmingly for Spanberger.'
A recent poll commissioned by Virginia FREE, a pro-business advocacy organization, put Spanberger ahead in the governor's race by 4 points. When support was broken down by race, the poll found 32% of likely voters who are Black supported Earle-Sears over Spanberger. That's actually a little less than the percentage — 36 — of likely Black voters who said they approved of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's performance. Youngkin, a Republican, is white.
In January, there were rumblings that Democratic U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott was considering a run for governor, apparently out of concern that Spanberger would be unable to drive Black voters to the polls. But Scott, who is Black and Filipino, never entered the race, and Spanberger became the Democratic nominee without a primary.
'I will say that Democrats are probably not getting quite as good of Black turnout as they would like, particularly in Southside Virginia and in Hampton Roads,' Kondik said.
'I think she's an underdog in this election, but if (Earle-Sears) were to win, it probably would be one of the factors that would go into her winning — not that she would be winning a substantially higher share of the Black vote than Republicans typically get, rather it would probably be that Black turnout is poor, and that Spanberger maybe isn't getting the kind of turnout she needs.'
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Shortly after Reid became the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, Youngkin called him and requested he step down from the race, pointing to a social media account that included reposts of images of men in states of undress and matched the username Reid uses for other social media platforms. At the time, Reid said the attacks were a direct result of him being openly gay.
Youngkin's request was embraced by evangelical Christian groups but proved to be a miscalculation of where the bulk of the Republican party is — Reid refused to drop out. He said issues of identity were no longer preeminent among Republican voters. That's a change from the past decade he attributed in part to President Donald Trump.
'The social issues were at one point very polarizing, and Donald Trump, shockingly, is the one who opened up the tent of the Republican party and said, as long as you are solid and you're conservative and you're smart and you're willing to work hard, then you have a place at the table and you may even have a job in the administration and in the party,' Reid said in an interview.
Earle-Sears has not appeared publicly alongside Reid since he became the nominee. Separately, recent reporting found that in 2024, she included a hand-written note stating her moral objection to a bill that prevents denying marriage licenses on the basis of sex, gender and race.
Trump has appointed some LGBTQ people to his current administration, including Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, and Kennedy Center Executive Director Ric Grenell. At the same time, Trump has dramatically rolled back protections for LGBTQ people. Some candidates of color say Trump's rhetoric has toxified the political landscape.
Democrat Levar Stoney, a Black candidate for lieutenant governor, said Virginia politics today feels more charged than when he first ran for Richmond mayor in 2016.
'People feel like they can do things, say things, that 10 years ago we would consider certainly disrespectful and in bad taste,' Stoney said. 'Go look at social media, and you will see it … It looks like misogyny, it's racism, xenophobia, you see it all throughout those social media platforms, and there's no accountability for it.'
But several candidates this year said it's an encouraging sign both parties have changed to grow more accepting of candidates from different backgrounds.
Ghazala Hashmi, the first Muslim state senator in Virginia, said she was initially inspired to run in 2019 in direct response to anti-Muslim statements from Trump. Now, she's one of six Democrats in the lieutenant governor's primary.
'We have probably the most diverse slate of candidates running statewide that Virginia has ever had before,' Hashmi said. 'And yet, it hasn't been a real topic of conversation, and in some ways, that's great news. That means we are accepting that diversity is really part of Virginia, and we are running candidates that look like Virginia.'
Other Democratic candidates in the lieutenant governor's race also made clear they were not running solely, if at all, on identity politics.
'My immutable characteristic as a Latino does not define my policy imperatives,' said former prosecutor Victor Salgado.
Salgado also rejected the idea that Republicans are more tolerant of a multiracial coalition than they were historically.
'I would question the premise that Republicans are running a diverse slate, because I don't think that they meant to,' he said, adding he thought establishment Republicans favored Pat Herrity, who dropped out of the election citing health concerns.
Former Gov. Doug Wilder, the first Black governor in the country post-Reconstruction, thinks it's a good thing identity appears to be less of a focal point in the 2025 election.
'I never mentioned color, I never mentioned race,' he said, reflecting on the campaign before his 1989 election. 'It doesn't matter if it's a woman or a man. What have you done, what are you going to do, and how do I know that you can do it?'
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While Virginia's Republican slate includes more diverse backgrounds, the candidates themselves have called for the dismantling of programming designed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
'I just think DEI is in the rearview mirror for most people,' Reid said.
About 52% of Americans say DEI efforts in the workplace are a good thing, down from 56% last year, a Pew Research survey found.
'Democrats think minorities can't succeed without DEI — that we need their help, their labels, their permission,' Earle-Sears said in one post. 'But I'm the Lt. Gov. of Virginia — the former capital of the Confederacy. I didn't get here through victimhood — but through faith, education, and grit.'
In interviews, Democratic candidates said they supported DEI policies — several criticized the weaponization of the phrase DEI in a way they said demonized people of color. Babur Lateef, chairman of the Prince William County School Board, said he would challenge Trump in court before he would let the president's administration dismantle DEI programming in the county schools.
'We didn't cut any program or rename any programs, and we are continuing to proceed as usual on the work we're doing with these communities and our schools,' Lateef said. 'We've completely just told the administration that we are not breaking any laws.'
On social media, Earle-Sears has labeled Spanberger 'the DEI or die candidate.'
The lieutenant governor praised University of Virginia's decision to shutter its DEI office in March and on social media repeatedly has shared a clip of Spanberger saying 'When we win here, we will be doing right by the people who have devoted themselves to the prospect of and the promise of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.'
Meanwhile, Spanberger has not referenced DEI on her social media at all since June 2020, when she co-wrote an op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch highlighting structural racism.
When asked about her stance on DEI programming, she said in a statement, 'As a former intelligence officer, I can tell you that what has kept our nation safe — and made our human intelligence operations the best in the world — over the past few decades has been our understanding of the strength and benefit that comes from differing experiences, perspectives, skill sets, and backgrounds. Initiatives, employers, and communities that seek to leverage that diversity do so to their — and our shared — benefit.'
Wrighten said Spanberger was likely trying to appeal to a more centrist audience by not explicitly endorsing DEI programming on the campaign.
'She's being strategic as well,' Wrighten said. 'She's not going to say negative things about DEI, but she's also not going to be a proponent of it because she knows that's going to isolate some of her base.'
The fact that candidates are highlighting diversity less on the trail is a sign something has shifted, Wrighten said.
'We find ourselves in a political climate where the pendulum has shifted back to a time where we no longer celebrate these differences,' she said. 'We see these differences as threats to the American way of life.
'I think the lack of focus on these identities is a clear signal that something has shifted in the political climate, and that is absolutely reflected in the way we see these really diverse candidates running and what they are focusing on.'
Kate Seltzer, 757-713-7881, [e-mail]