Republicans are in disbelief. Jerrauld “Jay” Jones, the Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general in this year’s elections, has yet to drop out of the race despite nauseous texts that reveal he once fantasized about gunning down then-Speaker of the Virginia House Todd Gilbert, a Republican. But, laying aside decency and decorum, why exactly should Jones drop out of the race?
On the prediction market website Kalshi, where Americans can bet on anything from the release date of Taylor Swift’s latest album to the number of times Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell will utter the word “uncertainty” during his economic outlook speech, Jones and the Democrats are still in the lead. And though the race between Jones and the current Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares has tightened considerably, Jones still holds a thin lead. That suggests the young Democrat may have already weathered the worst of the storm.
And Democrats, who have grown accustomed to making excuses for lame-duck candidates (cf., for example, the former President Joe Biden), appear ready to argue that Jones is still a viable candidate despite text messages that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger this week called “inexcusable.” Sure enough, during a Monday appearance on CNN, Sen. Tim Kaine, a stalwart of the Virginia Democratic Party, refused to call for Jones to abandon his campaign.
“The comments are completely indefensible,” Kaine told CNN host Manu Raju. “I’ve known Jay Jones for 25 years, and those comments are very much out of character for him. So if I put the comments, which are clearly beyond the pale, against knowing this guy for 25 years, I’m still supporting Jay Jones.”
No doubt, the scars of 2024 run deep in the Democratic camp. The decision to scrap Biden and push then–Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket late last summer is a strategic decision that will be regretted for years to come. With the Virginia elections only one month out, and with Democrats holding sizable polling advantages in all three major statewide races, what exactly is the benefit of allowing the outcries of Republicans to dictate whether Jones remains in the race?
And then there is just the boring political reality of an election already in full swing. Brian Tynes, a spokesman for Virginia’s Department of Elections, confirmed to CNN this week that early voting is well under way and it’s simply too late to add or remove names to the physical ballot to be used in less than four weeks. Even if the Democrats pulled the plug in an attempt to rid themselves of this embarrassing scandal, Jones’s name would still appear alongside Spanberger and the Democratic Lieutenant Governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi.
For Republicans, the Jones debacle should be a slam-dunk. His disturbing remarks should prove fertile ground for a comeback. Miyares, who lagged behind Jones by 6 points in pre-scandal polling conducted by Christopher Newport University, has struggled for months to paint Jones as weak and ineffective. In an election year when Virginians have expressed deep concerns over the state of the economy and President Donald Trump’s federal overreach, Miyares and the Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears, have attempted (and mostly failed) to leverage fears about transgenderism and a perceived lack of fairness in high school athletics as the key for returning Republicans to the Governor’s mansion.
But instead of embracing the golden goose, Republicans, as Republicans are wont, have inexplicably attempted to run Jones out of the race. Trump, writing to his social media feed on Sunday, called Jones a “Radical Left Lunatic” and joined similar calls from top Virginia Republicans who have demanded Jones abandon his campaign immediately. But that’s the last thing Republicans should be doing at this moment if they want to win. What they should be doing is thanking National Review, which first published the incendiary texts by Jones last Thursday, and then going on the attack.
Miyares, at least, seems to have gotten the message. Officials with the Miyares campaign announced Monday that they are launching a $1.5 million ad buy that will highlight the violent text messages sent by Jones in August of 2022. Whether the messages can erase a sizable lead for Jones during an election cycle that appears primed to act as a direct repudiation of Trump’s second administration is yet to be seen, but the ad buy could prove decisive.
Despite weathering the initial 48 hours of national news coverage, the 36-year-old Jones is still bracing for further impact. On Monday, the news site Virginia Scope published an alleged phone conversation that took place between Jones and the Republican Del. Carrie Coyner, the same person who shared the Gilbert text messages with National Review. Speaking to the Scope, Coyner said Jones made explosive comments about police officers during a heated phone conversation about qualified immunity in 2020.
After Coyner voiced support for qualified immunity, which protects officers from personal liability in the field, Jones allegedly replied: “Well, maybe if a few of them died, that they would move on, not shooting people, not killing people.” Though the unrecorded and alleged conversation is unlikely to whip up the same sort of fervor that the text messages did, for independents yet to make up their minds, the compounding nature of the graphic and violent messaging might be just enough to swing the race to Miyares.
Facing a tidal wave of criticism, Jones has done the only thing he can do: apologize. In a statement released Friday, Jones said he was embarrassed and ashamed. “I cannot take back what I said,” Jones said. “I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology.”
The chaotic and unnatural political atmosphere of the mid 20s, supercharged by the incredibly divisive Trump, suggests that not only can Jones survive this calamity but that he may still be capable of winning a race where Miyares, Earle-Sears, and the Republican lieutenant governor candidate John Reid have all struggled to gain meaningful traction.
On Monday night, the local ABC affiliate in Richmond broadcast two street interviews with voters who sounded ready to hold their noses and vote Jones. One woman said that although she “didn’t like” the comments, she was still willing to give Jones a second chance. A second woman said that although the disturbing comments from Jones would make her “swallow hard” in the voting booth, at the end of the day, she “has to vote blue because there’s no other choice.” If voters aren’t afraid to publicly support Jones after this debacle, why exactly should Jones be afraid to soldier forward?
At the end of the filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant 2015 crime thriller Sicario, Benicio Del Toro holds idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer at gunpoint and forces her to sign a statement against her will. As tears roll down her face, Del Toro mutters one of the all-time great lines of cinema: “You should move to a small town, somewhere the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now.”
In the age of Dark MAGA (and Dark Brandon), American politics is no longer an environment of class and decency. It is the land of wolves. The only decision left for Jones now is whether he is a sheep or a wolf. Jones, if he stays in this race, can still win it. But it will require thick skin and an acknowledgement from Jones and the Democratic Party that to admit defeat is the nature of sheep.
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