We have written here, here and elsewhere about Jay Jones, the Democrats’ candidate for Attorney General of Virginia. It came out, late in the campaign, that Jones has sent texts in which he fantasized about murdering a Republican legislator (“two bullets to the head”) and urinating on his grave. Also, seeing his young children (“little fascists”) die. You might think that would be the end of Jones’s political career, but not in 2025. Not in the Democratic Party. No notable Democrat has disowned Jones, including Abigail Spanberger, the Democrats’ mediocre candidate for governor. They are all behind the would-be murderer, 100%.
Salena Zito takes up the case:
[H]ow hard is it for Virginia Democrats to demand that [Jones] face consequences for his behavior? Where are Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.)? Gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger and lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Ghazala Hashmi? Yes, they have tepidly called Jones’ texts inexcusable. As for consequences? Well, they all still endorse him.
Zito contrasts Jones’s case with that of Governor Ralph Northam, who was abandoned by fellow Democrats after it came out that he had appeared in blackface as a college student, 30 years earlier. Jones’s conduct is vastly worse, yet his party stands behind him in a solid phalanx.
Perhaps it is because Democrats know it is too late to replace him on the ballot. Early voting has already started, and perhaps they don’t want the Republicans to score a win in the off-year cycle. Or, perhaps, and this is the worst possible scenario, the Democrats are secretly OK with what Jones texted.
I think that last hypothesis is correct. It is open season on Republicans, and if there is a member of the Democratic Party who objects, he is keeping it to himself. In the current Week In Pictures there is a graphic that says a radical Democrat is one who wants to kill Republicans, and a moderate Democrat is one who wants radical Democrats to kill Republicans.
Political insiders in Virginia tell me that in all likelihood, Abigail Spanberger will be elected governor, and Jay Jones is even a slight favorite to win the attorney general contest over the Republican incumbent. The reason is that President Trump is overwhelmingly unpopular in Virginia. Virginia, like Maryland, is home to a large number of federal employees, and Trump’s treatment of government workers is widely seen as both harsh and incompetent. As a result, this is a particularly difficult time to run as a Republican in mostly-blue Virginia.
All of that makes a certain amount of sense. Still, if a candidate with Jones’s homicidal desires (not to mention a recent conviction for going 116 mph in a 70-mph zone, which could have landed him in prison) can be elected attorney general, it is one more watershed moment in our political history.
