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A series of \u201cviolent\u201d texts<\/a> sent by a Democrat seeking to become Virginia\u2019s attorney general has shaken up the state\u2019s governor\u2019s race, with Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears seizing on the controversy to try to reverse her opponent\u2019s double-digit polling lead.<\/p>\n Earle-Sears has released new campaign advertisements<\/a> condemning Democratic former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, her opponenent in the governor\u2019s race, for continuing to support Jay Jones, whose private texts three years ago speculated about a senior state Republican getting \u201ctwo bullets to the head\u201d and \u201cbreeding little fascists\u201d.<\/p>\n Jones, a former state lawmaker, has apologized, and Spanberger distanced herself from his remarks, insisting in a statement: \u201cI will always condemn violent language in our politics.\u201d<\/p>\n But Earle-Sears, who trailed her opponent by 12 points<\/a> in a poll for November\u2019s election taken before the texts emerged, said Spanberger and Jones both needed to drop out of their respective races, a view echoed by Donald Trump. The president called Spanberger \u201cweak and ineffective\u201d in a post to his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n \u201cSpanberger\u2019s continuing support for Jay Jones is disqualifying for higher office,\u201d Earle-Sears said at a weekend press conference. \u201cShe and her party\u2019s irresponsible behavior have brought us to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n The episode comes amid escalating political violence<\/a> in the US, which in recent months has included the murders of Democratic Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman and the far-right commentator Charlie Kirk \u2013 as well as an arson attack<\/a> on the home of Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro.<\/p>\n Trump and his allies have attempted to portray the violence as the exclusive preserve of leftwing agitators, even though a study \u2013 removed by the justice department<\/a> from its website in September \u2013 concluded that far-right<\/a> extremists have killed far more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group.<\/p>\n The texts by Jones \u2013 who served in the state house from 2018 to 2021 \u2013 were sent in August 2022 to a Republican female former colleague. The text referred to Republican Todd Gilbert, the then speaker of the chamber.<\/p>\n According to National Review<\/a>, which first reported the texts Friday, Jones was musing about Gilbert and other Republicans in the wake of the death of Democratic long-serving state politician Joe Johnson Jr, saying he would \u201cpiss on their graves\u201d if they died before him.<\/p>\n Then he speculated on what he would do if he faced Gilbert and two dictators. \u201cThree people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSpoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.\u201d<\/p>\n In a subsequent text, he said Gilbert and his wife, Jennifer, were \u201cevil\u201d \u2013 and \u201cbreeding little fascists\u201d.<\/p>\n The recipient of the messages, Republican state house of delegates member Carrie Coyner, challenged Jones on their content, the National Review said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he said was not just disturbing but disqualifying for anyone who wants to seek public office,\u201d she told the outlet in a statement.<\/p>\n Her statement also said: \u201cIt\u2019s disgusting and unbecoming of any public official.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones issued his own statement of apology, accepting \u201cfull responsibility for my actions\u201d and stating he had apologized to Gilbert and his wife.<\/p>\n \u201cReading back those words made me sick to my stomach,\u201d he said. \u201cI am embarrassed, ashamed and sorry. I cannot take back what I said; I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology.\u201d<\/p>\n The Republican attorney general running for re-election against Jones, Jason Miyares, criticized his opponent at a press conference on Saturday. \u201cThe attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of Virginia<\/a>,\u201d Miyares said. \u201cIt must be done with character and integrity. Jay Jones has proven he is reckless, biased, and willing to trade away his integrity. This conduct is disqualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n The scandal has put Spanberger on the back foot in a race that she was comfortably winning.<\/p>\n \u201cThis definitely qualifies as something that breaks through, and not many events do that any more,\u201d Virginia-based Republican strategist Zack Roday said to NBC News. \u201cThis is all the campaign is going to be for the next 30 days.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A series of \u201cviolent\u201d texts sent by a Democrat seeking to become Virginia\u2019s attorney general has shaken up the state\u2019s governor\u2019s race, with Republican candidate Winsome Earle-Sears seizing on the controversy to try to reverse her opponent\u2019s double-digit polling lead. Earle-Sears has released new campaign advertisements condemning Democratic former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, her opponenent in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Virginia-governors-race-shaken-up-by-\u2018violent-texts-sent-by.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5463,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5461\/revisions\/5463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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