Amanda Chase, 'Trump in heels,' running for governor again

Former state Sen. Amanda Chase announced Wednesday night she is running for governor, positioning herself as an alternative to Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in the June GOP primary.

Chase, a prominent election denier, is a second potential GOP candidate who is questioning the lieutenant governor's loyalty to President Donald Trump.

Most of Virginia's GOP leaders — including Gov. Glenn Youngkin and more than 50 Republican state legislators — rallied around Earle-Sears on Wednesday after Dave LaRock, a former state delegate from Loudoun, filed papers to run for governor.

Chase said in an interview Wednesday night that she’s the best choice to go up against presumptive Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger, calling it a “battle of the blondes.”

“When I ran last time, I was called ‘Trump in heels’ because of my full-hearted support for the president,” Chase said.

“I have so much respect for (Earle-Sears) as a person, but she made statements publicly that she did not support President Trump, and that has really alienated a lot of Trump supporters, including myself.”

In 2022, after Republicans failed to make significant gains in the congressional midterm elections, Earle-Sears said it was time for the party to move on from Trump. But she backed Trump for president in 2024.

During a November rally in Salem, Trump acknowledged Earle-Sears' support. He told the crowd: “So we want your vote. And it would be a great tribute to Glenn and to me and to your great lieutenant governor who endorsed me recently. Thank you very much."

Chase said: “I will do what President Trump is doing at the federal level at the state level, and a lot of people are wanting that right now. They want to clean up the fraud, the waste, and inefficiency in state government. I have proven in the eight years I was on the state Senate that I'm not afraid to go toe to toe with the political establishment.”

The Earle-Sears campaign said in a statement Wednesday night: "Winsome is a winner, plain and simple. She has an extraordinary personal story and a long record of fighting for and delivering common-sense conservative policies that make life in Virginia better. That's why the groundswell of support for her campaign has grown too big to beat in any prospective primary, and it's how she'll deliver a win for Republicans in November."

To qualify for the primary, candidates must collect 10,000 signatures before April 3 — including at least 400 in each congressional district. Chase is encouraging her supporters to go to her website, print off the petition and start collecting signatures.

Chase, who represented Chesterfield in the state Senate from 2016 to 2024, has suffered a series of election setbacks since she sought the GOP nomination for governor in 2021, finishing third behind Youngkin in a field of seven candidates.

She announced, then scrapped plans to run for Spanberger's 7th District seat in Congress in 2022, after the state Supreme Court imposed new boundaries that moved the district from the Richmond suburbs to Northern Virginia.

In 2023, Republican Glen Sturtevant ousted Chase in a state Senate primary for the 12th District seat, which Sturtevant later won.

After moving to Appomattox, Chase in late 2024 sought the GOP nomination for the 10th District state Senate seat that opened when Republican John McGuire was elected to Congress. Chase lost that Senate nomination to Luther Cifers, who went on to win the Senate seat.

Chase has a long list of controversies during and after her Senate tenure. In 2020 she asserted and amplified unproved claims of extensive voter fraud after Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in Virginia by 10 percentage points. Chase urged Trump to declare martial law in an effort to thwart Biden's win.

Like LaRock, Chase attended Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 that preceded the riot at the U.S. Capitol. The state Senate later voted to censure Chase for a “pattern of unacceptable conduct,” including a lack of civility and making false and misleading statements.