Throughout all this the ex-Marine never stopped walking precincts, and a late infusion of state party money allowed her to spend $50,000, about half of Robinson’s war chest. The result was a stunning upset. Ms Sears won 53 percent, including 46 percent of the vote in the largely black Norfolk portions of the district.

Sears credited her conversion to the Republican Party to the candidacy of Michael Dukakis for president in 1988, when she was in her twenties. “He would talk about how only government could help the downtrodden lift themselves up and how the right of abortion couldn’t be restricted in any way, shape or form,” she recalls. “I just knew then that I had been a lazy Democrat and I never looked back. I became a Republican.”

Democrats were stunned by her victory, and vowed they would do everything to defeat her for re-election. Sears sidestepped that race and instead ran for Congress against a long-time incumbent. She lost 69 percent to 31 percent.

Sears went back to private life to run her business and finish raising her children.