Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares repeatedly called the words texted and allegedly spoken by Jay Jones about wanting to shoot a fellow legislator “disqualifying” for someone seeking office but stopped short of calling for his Democratic opponent to withdraw from the attorney general’s race.
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“You have to be coming from an incredibly dark place to say what you said, not about a stranger, about a colleague,” Miyares said. “One of my main jobs is to stop violence. I can’t imagine now that we’re debating an opponent that has advocated for violence.”
Miyares’ comments were offered during a campaign press conference on Saturday afternoon in the wake of reporting Friday by The National Review, a conservative news outlet.
The article outlined a series of text messages and a phone conversation between Jones and a Republican legislator in 2022 in which Jones speculated about who he’d shoot if given the chance, wished that one of Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert’s children would die to make him reconsider his position on guns, and then said that Gilbert and his wife were “breeding little fascists.”
“Jay Jones has disqualified himself as a potential attorney general of Virginia,” Miyares said. “The only way to hold Jay Jones accountable is to deny him the reward of the office of the attorney general.”
When asked if he will call for Jones to withdraw from the race, Miyares said that decision is up to his opponent.
On Saturday evening, Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor, did call for Jones to drop out. “Jay Jones is the poster child for the Democrat establishment and he fantasizes about murdered little children laying lifeless in their mother’s arms,” Earle-Sears said
The National Review article was published on the heels of a poll conducted by The Washington Post and the Schar School that showed Miyares trailing Jones by 6 points in the election for Virginia’s attorney general.
Jones’ ticketmates, other Democrats respond to scandal
Former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who is running for governor, and state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, who is running for lieutenant governor, both issued their condemnation of Jones’ words on Friday.
“I spoke frankly with Jay about my disgust with what he had said and texted. I made clear to Jay that he must fully take responsibility for his words. What I have also made clear is that as a candidate — and as the next Governor of our Commonwealth, I will always condemn violent language in our politics,” Spanberger said in a statement.
“I have been very clear that political violence has no place in our country, and I condemn it at every turn. Jay must take accountability for the pain that his words have caused. We must demand better of our leaders and of each other,” Hashmi said in a statement.
A Democratic candidate for House of Delegates, Rise Hayes, shared her “disgust” regarding Jones’ comments on Saturday.
“I don’t care which political party you have next to your name, fantasizing about shooting someone and their children is disgusting,” she wrote in a social media post that called Jones’ behavior disappointing and inappropriate.
Hayes is challenging Republican incumbent Wendell Walker to represent the 52nd District, which covers Lynchburg and part of Campbell County. The district is characterized as “leans Republican” by the Virginia Public Access Project. Walker won in 2023 with a 9 percentage point margin over his Democratic opponent.
Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, issued a joint statement on Friday that condemned Jones’ words and called on him to take accountability for his actions. Both had worked with Jones and know him personally and “as a legislator, assistant attorney general and father to two young boys,” they said, “he has “demonstrated the character, compassion, and vision that the Office of Attorney General deserves.”
Jones apologizes, Vice President JD Vance calls on Jones to ‘drop out’
Jones apologized for his 2022 comments in a written statement and in a Friday night television interview with ABC 8News.
“I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry,” he said, and added that he reached out to Gilbert and his family to apologize personally.
But that apology hasn’t quelled the outpouring of outrage.
By Saturday, the story had garnered national attention. Republican Vice President JD Vance weighed in through a post on X.
“The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages. I’m sure the people hyperventilating about sombrero memes will join me in calling for this very deranged person to drop out of the race,” the vice president wrote.
Jones’ campaign did not respond when asked if they would like to respond to Miyares’ assertion that the candidate’s 2022 words were “disqualifying.” Nor did the campaign respond when asked if Jones plans to withdraw from the attorney general race.
Virginia’s statewide elections, which take place a year after the presidential election, are considered a bellwether for the upcoming midterm elections, and a referendum on the presidential administration.