❓WHAT HAPPENED: Democrat Jay Jones is projected to win the Virginia attorney general race despite a scandal involving violent text messages.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Jay Jones, Jason Miyares, Winsome Earle-Sears, Abigail Spanberger, former President Barack Obama, and Todd Gilbert.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Virginia, Tuesday night, during the attorney general race.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Jason Miyares is Trump’s attorney, not ours,” said a narrator in one of Jones’ closing ads.
🎯IMPACT: Democrats now control the attorney general’s office in 22 states, with Jones pledging to oppose Trump’s policies and protect abortion.
Democrat Jay Jones is projected to win Virginia’s attorney general race despite having fantasized in text messages about murdering a Republican lawmaker and their children. The violent text messages became the dominant issue in the race, with numerous state and national lawmakers having called on Jones to drop out of the race.
Jones defeated incumbent Republican Jason Miyares, who had previously run the attorney general’s office in alignment with President Donald J. Trump‘s policy agenda. Despite running five points behind Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat Party’s victorious gubernatorial nominee, Jones was able to hold off Miyares with a campaign focused on abortion and attacks on the Trump White House.
The scandal centered on text messages Jones sent to a Republican lawmaker, where he expressed ideations about shooting then-GOP Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children. The controversy became a central focus of Republican ads, with even gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears highlighting the issue. Jones apologized, but his fundraising suffered, and Democrat leaders largely avoided campaigning with him until a rally with former President Barack Obama in Norfolk.
Jones’s victory ensures Democrats now control the attorney general’s office in 22 states.
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