Longtime Democrat Donor Flips, Backs GOP Candidate In Crucial Race

A top donor to national Democrats has flipped, instead backing Virginia’s Republican nominee for governor after she was the target of a racist attack by a far-left protestor.

Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee in her state’s Nov. 4 election, drew the ire of protestors during an Aug. 21 school board hearing in Arlington County. Her appearance was a chance for Earle-Sears to highlight her opposition to the county’s bathroom and locker policies for children, which allow biological males claiming to be transgender to enter women’s facilities.

During a rally outside the meeting, one protestor held up a sign that read, “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then blacks can’t share my water foundation.”

The ensuing controversy has been a boon to Sears’ campaign, which has trailed in the polls for months. Appearing on Fox News after the event, she spoke in high-minded terms about her responsibilities in elected office.

“I’m elected to represent all, even those who hate me,” Sears said.

The racist sign drew sympathy from Robert Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET) and chairman of asset manager RLJ Companies, who donated $500,000 to Earle-Sears’s campaign last month. Johnson, one of the country’s first black billionaires, has showered mostly Democrats with his fundraising in the past, including former President Barack Obama and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Earle-Sears would become the first female black governor in the country if she defeats Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger.

“Madam Lt. Governor. I was so appalled by that racist diatribe displayed by a useful idiot at a recent press event that I chose to show all the voters of Virginia how Black Brothers stand up to defend and support their Black Sisters when confronted with unadulterated racism,” Johnson wrote to Earle-Sears in a statement to the Daily Caller by the GOP nominee’s campaign. “I have always been a good investor and that’s why I’m investing in you.”

Johnson waded into the last open race for governor of Virginia in 2021 when he donated to Democrat Terry MacAuliffe over Glenn Youngkin.

“I’m disgusted, but not surprised. This is the ‘tolerant’ left Abigail Spanberger defends,” Earle-Sears wrote on X after an older white woman was photographed holding up the racist sign.

“There is no place for this disgusting hatred in our Commonwealth. Anyone who doesn’t condemn this sign is complicit in approving it.”

Spanberger released a statement after the sign went viral, calling its message “racist” and “abhorrent.”

Polling from early August gave Spanberger a 7-point lead over Earle-Sears, but that gap has narrowed from 12 points since July. A Republican-aligned polling firm put Spanberg ahead by just 5 points, or 47% to 43%.