This is where the electric field becomes much stranger.
A static electric field around an isolated charge needs a source charge. But an electric field does not always need a charge sitting where the field exists.
A changing magnetic field can create an electric field, even in completely empty space. Faraday discovered this experimentally:
And Maxwell took the idea further: changing electric and magnetic fields can sustain one another and propagate through space as an electromagnetic wave.
That's how light can travel through a vacuum.
So, the more complete picture is,
Charge can create electric fields, but fields don't always need nearby charges.
