Democrat Jay Jones wins race to be Virginia attorney general despite controversies

[mahatmakanejeeves]

News
Democrat Jay Jones wins race to be Virginia attorney general despite controversies

By The Associated Press and ARLnow.com
Published November 4, 2025 at 10:20PM


FILE - Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general Jay Jones participates in the debate with Republican incumbent Jason Miyares in Richmond, Va., Oct. 16, 2025. (Mike Kropf/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP, Pool, File)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrat Jay Jones was elected Tuesday as Virginia attorney general, riding a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the White House to overcome the revelation that in 2022 he sent widely condemned texts embracing violence against a fellow state lawmaker.

The former Virginia delegate defeated Republican incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares weeks after it emerged that Jones had texted a fellow delegate suggesting the then-House speaker should get “two bullets to the head.” Jones apologized for the private messages both in statements and at a debate in October.

{snip}

[IronLionZion]

1. I voted early before the scandal came out

other Dems may have done the same. Early voting helps lessen the impact of October surprises.

[rogue emissary]

5. The numbers are baring this out.

I'd already turned my vote in when the scandal broke. I guess it scared a few more Republicans out to vote but honestly Republicans weren't going to vote for their ticket.

[yellow dahlia]

2. Maybe he got some Repug votes - hey, he's one of us.

They like the "bad" behavior...but was it really bad enough for them?

[RandySF]

3. I normally wouldn't root for this duy.

But I am sick and tired of being upstanding while Republicans elect a senator who sterilized single moms without consent.

[Silent Type]

4. Bit extreme, unless you compare him to trump and his henchmen. Glad voters overlooked it.

[BlueWavePsych]

6. Democrats didn't just rebound. They dominated.

Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill cruised to double-digit victories in Virginia and New Jersey. Two Georgia Democrats flipped seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, the first non-federal statewide wins for a Democrat in nearly two decades. Democrats flipped a pair of Republican-held state Senate seats in Mississippi, cracking the GOP supermajority in a deep-red state. And a successful California ballot measure delivered five additional seats for the party’s House margins ahead of the 2026 midterms, offsetting Texas’ redistricting push.

But they also started to overperform in special elections, hinting that the tide was turning. And on Tuesday, their first big electoral test of the second Trump era, they didn’t just match the wins from eight years ago that had been a harbinger of a blue wave in the 2018 midterms — in several key races, they exceeded them.

“After brutal losses, like 2024 and 2016, it is hard to trust polling … and your gut of what should happen historically. You can’t trust it,” said Stephanie Schriock, a Democratic strategist who formerly led EMILY’s List, a progressive group that elects women. “But everything, the internal polling, the organizations on the ground, the No Kings and Indivisible movement, the energy, it was all there.”

“The one thing that would worry me, besides making sure you hold the House, is looking at how Democrats were able to fire up their base in some of these local elections in Georgia,” the strategist said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/05/democrats-2025-win-midterms-virginia-new-jersey-00637057

[Deep State Witch]

7. People Say Stupid Shit In Anger

My attitude is that people say stupid shit in anger all of the time. If it was such a big deal, why didn't it come out in the primary? He owned his mistake, he apologized, he learned a valuable lesson.

Meanwhile, Miyares never commented on the murder of the Minnesota Speaker of the House, her husband, and their dog. And let's not forget the top of the GOP ticket posing with her AR-15 and talking about murdering pro-choice people.