RICHMOND, Virginia — Four years ago, Glenn Youngkin, a political upstart, flipped the Virginia governor’s mansion red for the first time since 2009, foreshadowing Republican gains in the 2022 and 2024 cycles.

His running mate at the time, Winsome Earle-Sears, became the state’s first woman lieutenant governor. Four years later, Earle-Sears is betting she can recreate the same grassroots campaign that could propel her not just to being Virginia’s first woman governor but the nation’s first black woman governor as well.