Democrats launch tour to hold Earle-Sears accountable for downplaying Trump’s job cuts

Thousands of federal workers in Virginia have lost their jobs, and Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has struggled to respond without seeming dismissive of their struggles.

Virginia Democrats will kick off what they are calling the “Real Issues” Tour on Thursday, with a press conference in Richmond where elected leaders and Virginians will talk about the consequences of President Donald Trump’s federal job cuts, which have impacted thousands of Virginians. More events are planned to follow in other parts of the state. 

One of the speakers expected to participate is Alexandria resident Colleen Jones, who worked for the federal government for twenty years before she got laid off via Trump’s dissolution of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Jones, a veteran who served in the US Coast Guard, said getting laid off was devastating.   

“It wasn’t just a job cut,” Jones said in an interview. “It was basically a gut punch to all the service I had over 20 years and to my family.”

Jones, a mother of three, had to scramble to find a new job to get health insurance that would support her son, who is autistic and has severe special needs. 

Some of her old friends from work weren’t as lucky. She watched as they had to move out of the area to other states to find jobs that matched their skill levels. Meanwhile, she turned her anger over what was happening into action, making phone calls, doing text banks, and knocking on doors for Democratic nominee for governor, Abigail Spanberger. 

“I was so excited to support a candidate for Virginia’s governor who is committed to protecting and supporting all of the Virginians that are impacted by these attacks on federal employees,” Jones said.

By contrast, Jones feels that the Republican nominee for governor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, and current Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin don’t understand just how bad things are for federal workers. 

“They don’t realize how the loss of 10,000 jobs or more than that is going to severely impact the Northern Virginia economy,” Jones said. “It’s not just an individual’s job. It’s how many times they go out to eat in local restaurants, or whether or not they can afford to stay in this area.”

Unemployment has been on the rise in Virginia this year, including in Northern Virginia. The unemployment rate in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria region was 3.7% in July, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 3.1% in January. 

When a CNN anchor in August pushed Earle-Sears to comment on the federal job cuts, she said she wanted to “talk about real issues.” Back in March, leaked comments of Earle-Sears saying she didn’t understand why the media was making a big deal about so many Virginians losing their jobs went viral. Behind the scenes, however, she has acknowledged that Trump’s federal cuts have hurt her in the polls. 

As Earle-Sears focuses more on culture war issues in her pitch to voters, at least one poll shows that Virginians are more concerned about the cost of living. Earle-Sears and Youngkin would do well to heed their constituents’ concerns, Jones said. 

“They do need to realize that we do collectively have a very loud voice as former federal employees, foreign service officers, et cetera,” Jones said. “And we will fight back against them being so blase about our livelihoods and our skill sets.”

Earle-Sears’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.