LEESBURG, VIRGINIA — When Winsome Earle-Sears’s campaign bus caught fire on a Virginia highway days before the election, it offered a fitting metaphor for a gubernatorial bid that never found its footing and ultimately went up in flames.

Earle-Sears, the Republican lieutenant governor who once made history as the first Black woman elected in Virginia, lost to Democrat Abigail Spanberger by nearly fifteen points on Tuesday. Earle-Sears’s blowout even stunned veteran operatives accustomed to Virginia’s blue tilt. What began as an attempt to extend Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) conservative blueprint ended in disarray, undone by weak fundraising, muddled messaging, and a candidate critics say never fully engaged the grind of a modern statewide campaign.