The race for Virginia’s attorney general has been thrown into turmoil following the revelation of disturbing text messages sent by Democratic candidate Jay Jones in 2022. The texts, which surfaced on October 4, 2025, and were first reported by The National Review and FOX News, show Jones joking about shooting then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a prominent Republican. The fallout has been swift and severe, with bipartisan condemnation and calls for Jones to suspend his campaign, raising new questions about the state of political discourse and the boundaries of acceptable conduct for public officials.
According to the messages exchanged between Jones and Republican Delegate Carrie Coyner on August 8, 2022, Jones wrote, “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.” The comparison to two of history’s most notorious mass murderers was shocking enough, but Jones’s suggestion that Gilbert should be singled out for violence set off alarm bells across Virginia’s political spectrum. Coyner, clearly disturbed, replied, “Jay ... Please stop.” She later told FOX 5 DC, “What he said was not just disturbing but disqualifying for anyone who wants to seek public office. Jay Jones wished violence on the children of a colleague. It’s disgusting and unbecoming of any public official.”
As the conversation continued, Coyner expressed her discomfort with Jones’s comments, including his references to harm coming to Gilbert’s children. Reports from The National Review indicated that Jones described Gilbert’s children dying in the arms of their mother during a subsequent phone call with Coyner. The gravity of these remarks prompted Coyner to publicly denounce Jones, further fueling the controversy.
At the time the texts were sent, Todd Gilbert was serving as speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates. He has since left the legislature, briefly taking a position as a federal prosecutor before resigning a month later. Gilbert himself has not commented publicly on the incident, but the messages have nonetheless shaken Virginia’s political establishment.
The backlash was immediate and fierce. Republican incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares, whom Jones is challenging in the November 2025 general election, did not mince words. “You have to be coming from an incredibly dark place to say what you said,” Miyares told reporters. “Not by a stranger. By a colleague. Somebody you had served with. Someone you have worked with.” He went on to highlight his own experience as a prosecutor and as attorney general, emphasizing the pain of victims’ families: “There is no cry like the cry of a mother that lost her child. None.”
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also weighed in, calling for Jones to suspend his campaign. On X (formerly Twitter), Youngkin stated, “Jones doesn’t have the morality or character to drop out of this race, and his running mates Abigail Spanberger, Ghazala Hashmi and every elected Democrat in Virginia don’t have the courage to call on him to step away from this campaign in disgrace.”
Other Democrats did not shy away from criticizing their party’s nominee. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor, said in a statement, “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.” She added, “I will always condemn violent language in our politics.” Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, told FOX 5 DC, “Jay must take accountability for the pain that his words have caused. We must demand better of our leaders and of each other.”
The Republican Attorneys General Association joined the chorus, with its chairman, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, declaring, “There is no place for political violence, including joking about it – especially from an elected official.” He called for Jones to withdraw from the race, labeling the messages as “abhorrent.”
Jones, for his part, issued a public apology on October 4, 2025. “Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry,” he said. “I have reached out to Speaker Gilbert to apologize directly to him, his wife Jennifer, and their children. I cannot take back what I said; I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology.” Jones described his remarks as a “grave mistake” and vowed, “Virginians deserve honest leaders who admit when they are wrong and own up to their mistakes. This was a grave mistake and I will work every day to prove to the people of Virginia that I will fight for them as Attorney General.”
The controversy comes at a time when concerns about political violence are running high in the United States. The recent shooting deaths of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and former Minnesota Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband have put the issue in sharp focus. Against this backdrop, the revelation of Jones’s texts has injected new urgency into debates over civility, rhetoric, and the responsibilities of those seeking public office.
Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor, announced plans to hold a press conference on October 5, 2025, to address what she called Jones’s “horrific and unacceptable comments.” The campaign for attorney general, already hard-fought, has now become a flashpoint in statewide races being closely watched for national trends ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when control of Congress could be at stake.
Jones’s texts were sent in August 2022, after he had stepped down from his previous role as a state legislator in 2021. He was not holding elected office at the time, but his aspirations for higher office have brought his past words under intense scrutiny. The campaign did not dispute the authenticity of the messages, which were obtained by FOX News and corroborated by multiple outlets.
The episode has laid bare the deepening divisions and heightened sensitivities in American politics. While some Republicans have seized on the incident to demand Jones’s withdrawal, Democrats have been forced to reckon with the conduct of one of their own, balancing calls for accountability with the realities of a pivotal election year.
As early voting continues in Virginia, voters are left to grapple with the implications of the scandal. The attorney general’s race, once a contest over policy and vision, has become a referendum on character, judgment, and the limits of political discourse. With both parties seeking to claim the moral high ground, the outcome may hinge as much on questions of trust as on ideology.
For now, Jay Jones remains in the race, his candidacy marked by a controversy that has shaken Virginia politics and reignited a national conversation about the power—and peril—of words in public life.
