Virginia Democrats are defending gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger’s handling of a text scandal that has rocked the commonwealth less than a month out from the elections.
Over the weekend, the governor’s race was roiled by news that Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones had sent text messages expressing violence toward former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R) back in 2022. Republicans have since used Jones’s comments, in which he suggested shooting Gilbert, to attack Spanberger amid a national reckoning over the rise of political violence.
Spanberger has repeatedly condemned the texts, but she notably refrained from calling on him to drop out during a Thursday night debate against GOP nominee Winsome Earle-Sears. Many Democrats see it as the right approach, even as Republicans step up their attacks over the controversy.
“She basically said, I’m accountable for my own words. She was very clear on that,” state House Speaker Don Scott (D) said in a post-debate interview. “She has vehemently denounced anything that he has said but she said she has to run her own race.”
The scandal took center stage at Thursday’s gubernatorial debate in Norfolk, with Earle-Sears, who repeatedly interrupted Spanberger throughout the night, immediately pressing her rival over the issue.
“Jay Jones advocated the murder of a man, a former Speaker, as well as his children,” Earle-Sears said. “What if he said it about your three children?”
The moderators also asked Spanberger if she still endorsed Jones, a question the Democrat repeatedly declined to answer directly.
Republicans see the Jones controversy as a massive vulnerability for both Democratic candidates heading into November, though some members of the party acknowledged that Earle-Sears’s raucous performance might have overshadowed some of her more successful attacks over the issue.
“If I were Winsome, I would have just let her talk because she was certainly twisting on the vine on that one with no good answers,” former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) told The Hill in a post-debate interview.
“Of course she had to have it both ways, saying, ‘I condemn that, but no, let the voters decide.’ Well, that’s not leadership,” the former governor continued.
While Spanberger has campaigned with Jones and the party’s lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Gazala Hashmi, the candidates are running their own races independently of each other. On Thursday, Spanberger sought to put distance between her and Jones.
“The comments that Jay Jones [made] are absolutely abhorrent,” she said. “I denounced them when I learned of them and I will denounce them every opportunity that I get. As a mother, as a public servant, as a candidate for governor, I denounce them.”
When the debate moderators pressed Spanberger on whether she would continue to back Jones, she said it is up to voters on whether or not they will support him now that they have the information. The response mirrored Spanberger’s initial statement responding to the news last week that her campaign swiftly put out.
“She put out a very strong statement on day one of that, where a lot of Democrats in the state were pissed off with her that the statement was too strong. I think she hit it on the mark with her first statement. And so last night she was just sticking with her statement,” said Ben Tribbett, a Virginia Democratic strategist.
“Nothing happened between the time she issued that first very strong statement that would have caused her to change her mind, so why would she state a different position at the debate than what she already said?” he added.
It’s unclear how the texting scandal will impact the attorney general race, but the possibility of split-ticket voting has been floated over the past week. While polls show Spanberger leading Earle-Sears by double digits, the attorney general race is more narrow.
A Christopher Newport University poll released earlier this week and conducted prior to the text messages leak showed Jones leading Republican attorney general nominee Jason Miyares by six points, 49 to 43 percent. However, an internal poll from the Jones campaign conducted after the text messages were leaked showed Jones leading Miyares 46 percent to 45 percent. An internal poll released by the Republican Attorneys General Association conducted after the leak showed Miyares leading Jones 46 to 44 percent.
“Normally, it’s a straight party line the last three elections or so,” said McDonnell, who was elected attorney general on the last split ticket Virginia has seen in 2005.
“I think it’s a pall across the board on the Democratic ticket but especially will cause a real decline in the votes for Jay Jones,” he added.
Before Spanberger and Earle-Sears took the stage for the debate in Norfolk, Jones made a campaign stop at City Hall with state lawmakers on Thursday. Jones also issued a statement on Friday hitting the Trump administration over the latest layoffs in the federal workforce amid the government shutdown.
Jones issued two statements following the leaked messages last week, including one that received criticism, accusing Miyares of “dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations.”
In a second statement, Jones issued an apology to Gilbert, the former House Speaker he referenced in his texts, and said he was “embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry.”
Jones also apologized during an interview with WRIC in Richmond, which is owned by The Hill’s parent company Nexstar Media Group.
Despite issuing the second statement and taking part in a sit-down interview explaining himself, some Democrats don’t think Jones is out of the woods yet. Most pressing, he faces a debate on Thursday against Miyares, which could prove to be a make-or-break moment for him.
“He’s not going to survive in the AG race and win the election if he just tries to change the subject from what happened,” Tribbett said. “He just has to give an apology and reaction that people can feel is real and doesn’t sound like a pre-written soundbite that’s designed to move on to ‘we’re back to normal.’”
Miyares and the moderators will have ample opportunity to press Jones over the scandal next week, but Jones also will have another opportunity to explain to voters why they should still vote for him in the wake of the leaked texts.
“Abigail is doing him a huge favor by giving him the room to go give an opportunity to explain himself,” Tribbett said.
“But that time is not infinite and the time from the party is not going to be infinite for him to continue screwing this up.”
