Republican Winsome E. Sears has won a historic lieutenant governor’s race in Virginia. Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin is the projected victor of his own race.

The win makes Sears, who immigrated to the United States from Jamaica as a child, the first woman and the first Black woman elected to statewide office in Virginia. Just ten Black women in the U.S. have ever held statewide office.

“What you are looking at is the American dream,” Sears said as she took the stage with her family Tuesday night at the watch party for Youngkin. “I didn’t run to make history. I ran to leave it better than I found it … Help is on the way.”

The lieutenant governor’s election would have made history either way: Sears’ Democratic opponent, Hala Ayala, identifies as Afro-Latina, Lebanese, and Irish, and would have been the first woman of color to hold the office as well.

Sears, a former marine and national chairperson for Black Americans to Re-elect Donald Trump, was ahead by two full percentage points just after 1 a.m. Wednesday on a strong night for Republicans in Virginia.

Youngkin energized conservative voters in the state around culture-war issues like discussions of racism in schools. He also managed to walk a fine line, appealing to former president Donald Trump’s base without going so far as to alienate more moderate Republicans.

The results of that approach were evident on Tuesday, as Republicans appeared poised to take every seat on Virginia’s statewide ticket: the governorship, the attorney general’s office, and the lieutenant governor’s office.

Sears’ victory secures a key tie-breaking vote for Republicans in the Virginia Senate, which has 21 Democrats and 19 Republicans. Justin Fairfax, the current lieutenant governor, has cast more than 50 such votes during his time in the job — including a vote on legislation that repealed several restrictions on abortion.

During her campaign, Ayala called the lieutenant governorship a “firewall” against attempts to limit abortion access in the state, because Virginia Senate Democrat Joe Morrissey has sided with Republicans on the issue of abortion in the past. Sears, on the other hand, is known for her anti-abortion views and has expressed support for enacting a policy similar to Texas’s abortion ban.

The position is also considered to be a potential launching pad for the governorship: five of the last 10 lieutenant governors went on to become governors themselves.

Sears’ win came despite the signs of turmoil in her campaign as election day approached; she laid off her campaign manager and at least five other staffers in September.

During her campaign, Sears emphasized job-creation and education — and weighed in on COVID-related issues that generated enthusiasm among conservatives, like vaccine mandates and school reopening.

Sears has said she opposes a vaccine mandate, and has declined to say whether she is personally vaccinated.

“If you want to get vaccinated, you do so — absolutely,” Sears told WTOP. “Otherwise, you mask up; you keep your distance, you do everything in your power to keep yourself safe.”

She’s also aligned herself with Youngkin’s messaging on education, particularly regarding school curriculum on the country’s racial history. Youngkin and his supporters seized on the idea that public schools were indoctrinating children with “critical race theory” — an academic concept that schools across the state have said they do not teach.

Sears said she wants to see a complete version of African American history taught in Virginia schools — but has called the concept of critical race theory “nonsense.” She has cautioned against ways of teaching that sow any kind of racial division — a move she has said would “create morale problems for everybody.”

And she’s known for her strong support of the Second Amendment: Pro-gun activists praised her early in her campaign for a controversial poster featuring her posing with an assault-style weapon. “I am a marine. I am very comfortable with weapons — and by the way, we do have a Second Amendment right to have these weapons,” she said of the campaign poster at the time.

Still, Sears has also made efforts to deemphasize some of her more conservative positions. In September, Ayala’s campaign criticized Sears for making significant changes to her campaign website, including scrubbing sections that highlighted anti-abortion views and the desire to impose stricter voting requirements. That messaging was replaced with her stances on issues that come across as more middle-of-the-road, like jobs, tax cuts, and creating a Black Advisory Cabinet to the governor.

Sears is no stranger to Virginia politics, but she hasn’t held office in the state for years.

She entered politics when she was elected to represent the Hampton Roads area in Virginia’s General Assembly for one term, from 2002 to 2004. She was the first Black Republican woman, first woman born outside of the U.S., and first woman veteran to be elected to the General Assembly. After her first term, she decided against seeking re-election, saying she wanted to focus on her family because her daughters were still in high school. A year later, she ran for Congress and lost — and after that, she took a long hiatus from politics and started a plumbing and electrical repair business with her husband. During that time, her daughter and two granddaughters died in a tragic car crash.

She was appointed to the State Board of Education in 2011, where she advocated for the loosening of restrictions on charter schools. She became vice president of the state board in 2014. She also led education programs with the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce.

In 2018, she ran for U.S. Senate as a write-in against the Republican candidate Corey Stewart, citing his associations with white supremacists and support for the Confederate Flag as reasons why he was unqualified for office, but secured less than 1% of the vote. But Sears made a more definitive re-entry to the political scene when took on the role of national chairperson for Black Americans to Re-Elect President Trump.

Sears has expressed pride in her Jamaican heritage and in her identity as an immigrant, and has made policies geared towards Black Virginians —- including funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities — a focus of her campaign. But similarly to many on the political right, she shies away from describing racism as a systemic problem.

Speaking at a watch party for Youngkin, Heather Rice, who serves on the 10th District state central committee for the Virginia GOP, said Sears’ victory was a sign of the Republican party’s inclusiveness.

“I’m a female veteran as well,” said Rice. “All of us have a place at this table, and that’s what I like. I like the fact that our slate … really reflects the diversity and also the inclusiveness that we have.”

Though her win is historic, Sears has said she wouldn’t be too focused on the fact that she will be the first Black woman to hold this office in Virginia.

“It’s not the first time I’ve made history, it’s not important to me,” she told the Virginia Mercury in August. “If people see someone who looks like me and say ‘Hey! Winsome is there, if she can do it I can do it,’ that’s awesome. If I can be that example then making history will mean something. But other than that I’m about getting to work.”

This story has been updated to note Sears’ projected win.