Democrat Jay Jones will win the Virginia attorney general’s race, CBS News projects, surviving a scandal that arose late in the race over violent text messages he had written in 2022 about a Republican legislator.
Jones defeated GOP incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who had tried to seize on the resurfaced text messages to portray him as unfit for the office. But Miyares, who was backed by President Trump, was confronted by the headwinds of the federal shutdown and the president’s government cuts in a state with high numbers of government workers — over 147,000 — according to Office of Personnel Management data.
In his sole debate against Miyares, Jones apologized multiple times for the texts, but maintained Miyares’ connections to Mr. Trump were worse.
Jones resisted calls from Republicans to drop out after the text message scandal.
Although Jones was denounced by the Democrats’ nominee for governor, Abigail Spanberger, who also won on Tuesday night, over the text messages, he was part of the Democrats’ closing rally over the weekend with former President Barack Obama.
In the text messages, Jones wrote that he would “piss on graves” of GOP opponents and mused about a fantasy hypothetical shooting of Republican Todd Gilbert, who was then speaker of the House of Delegates. In a statement to CBS News at the time, Jones said he took full responsibility for his actions and apologized for the texts.
Jones had been leading the race according to a Washington Post poll in early October, but before the poll was released, the text messages resurfaced.
Miyares had seized on the texts, too, running ads saying, “Can you trust Jay Jones to protect your children?”
Miyares was elected in 2021 as part of the red wave in Virginia that swept Gov. Glenn Youngkin into office. As attorney general, Miyares brought lawsuits against the Biden administration, but has so far only joined one lawsuit against the Trump administration. Jones during the primary campaign vowed he’d sue the Trump administration “into oblivion” on his first day in office.
Before the text message scandal, Miyares emphasized a tough-on-crime message, criticizing Jones, who served in the House of Delegates from 2018 to 2022, for votes he had cast for criminal justice reform. Jones said at the October debate that he’d prioritize protecting civil rights and Virginia communities, and also touted a three-point public safety plan, which he said was created with the input of state and local law enforcement officials.