The final month of Virginia’s race for governor appeared poised to center on issues like affordability, abortion and transgender rights.
And then on Friday, it was revealed that a Democratic nominee further down the November ballot, for state attorney general, had suggested that one of the top legislative Republicans in the state be shot in the head in text messages three years ago.
The development, which further inflamed already raw emotions around political violence, has provided an unexpected jolt down the homestretch in what had been a relatively staid election season in Virginia, one of the first major statewide contests to take place since last year’s presidential race.
The surfacing of the messages from Democrat Jay Jones quickly sparked criticism from members of both parties, putting Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee and the front-runner in the race for governor, on the defensive during a crucial moment and suddenly giving her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a potential opening.
Spanberger has maintained substantial advantages over Earle-Sears in polling and fundraising throughout the campaign. But with four weeks still to go before Election Day — and early voting underway — the development promises to be a major factor in shaping the dynamics of the final days of the race.
“This definitely qualifies as something that breaks through, and not many events do that anymore,” said Zack Roday, a Virginia-based Republican strategist who is not working with the Earle-Sears campaign.
Roday said Spanberger’s polling and money leads make it so that “she can afford to have her margin shaved off in certain key areas.”
Still, he said, the news “absolutely tightens the race.”
Bipartisan backlash
The backlash to Jones’ 2022 texts — in which he suggested that Republican Todd Gilbert, then Virginia’s House speaker, get “two bullets to the head” — was swift, severe and bipartisan.
The story, first reported by the National Review, quickly drew the attention of top national Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who demanded Sunday on Truth Social that Jones drop out of the race.
Democrats condemned it, too. In a statement Friday, Spanberger said she had spoken “frankly” with Jones about her “disgust with what he had said and texted” and “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,” she added.
But Spanberger and other prominent Virginia Democrats have stopped short of calling on Jones to drop out. Her campaign did not respond to additional questions Monday about whether she felt Jones should end his bid.
Earle-Sears has seized on that decision, calling on Jones to drop out and saying Spanberger’s continued support for him disqualifies her from running for governor, as well.
“Let me be clear — Spanberger’s continuing support for Jay Jones is disqualifying for higher office,” Earle-Sears said at a news conference Saturday evening. “She and her party’s irresponsible behavior have brought us to this point.”
Earle-Sears’ campaign also began running digital ads centered on the news. One ad clips together a series of news reports about Jones’ texts, intertwining them with Spanberger’s past praise for Jones.
Jones has apologized for the texts, which he sent before he held elected office, saying in a statement that “reading back those words made me sick to my stomach” and that he was “embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry.”
Still, Jones’ texts threaten to have an outsized impact in the last weeks of the race, particularly in the wake of the assassinations of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last month and Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman over the summer.
“This is all the campaign is going to be for the next 30 days,” Roday said of Jones’ texts.
Even before Jones’ texts surfaced, political violence had been part of Earle-Sears’ closing message.
Last week, her campaign released a digital ad blaming Democrats for helping fan the flames of political violence, seizing on Spanberger’s comments last month telling supporters to “let your rage fuel you.” (The Spanberger campaign has said her remarks were taken “out of context.”)
It was a pivot of sorts from the main focus of her closing message. Earle-Sears has leaned most heavily in recent weeks into anti-transgender attacks. She has focused on criticizing Spanberger’s stances on transgender people’s participation in youth sports and use of school locker rooms and public bathrooms. It’s an attempt to replicate Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s successful approach four years ago to focus on parental and cultural issues.
Meanwhile, Spanberger has consistently hammered affordability and economic issues while she has tied Earle-Sears to Trump. In recent weeks, her closing message had also wrapped in a heavy focus on reproductive rights and public safety and crime. And Spanberger has tried to attach blame to Earle-Sears for the federal government shutdown, linking it to Trump’s federal workforce cuts, which had an outsized impact on Virginia.
Challenges remain for Earle-Sears
But several operatives and strategists from both parties told NBC News that Earle-Sears’ opening most likely is too little and too late.
A poll released Friday, conducted before Jones’ texts surfaced, by The Washington Post and the George Mason University Schar School of Public Policy showed Spanberger leading Earle-Sears 55% to 43% among likely voters, outside the survey’s reported margin of error.
Respondents said that “economy/cost of living/jobs/housing” was the most important issue to them in the election, according to the poll, ahead of “education/schools” and “policies about transgender students.” The poll also found that 69% of registered voters agreed with Earle-Sears’ position that transgender girls should be allowed to play only on sports teams that match the genders they were born with.
Democratic strategists have pointed out that Trump has still not endorsed Earle-Sears, even after he visited Virginia on Sunday for an event celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Navy. Trump did not mention Earle-Sears, who attended the event, even after he endorsed Jones’ Republican opponent in the state attorney general’s race, Jason Miyares, earlier in the day on Truth Social.
Earle-Sears is “doing her best to bring Donald Trump’s extreme job-killing and cost-raising agenda to Virginia, but even he wants nothing to do with her desperate and failing campaign,” Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Saw Newton said in a statement Monday.
In addition, early voting kicked off in Virginia on Sept. 19, and more than 355,000 voters had cast their ballot as of Sunday, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. That amounts to more than 10% of all the ballots cast in the 2021 governor’s race.
A national Democratic strategist involved with the race acknowledged the severity of the situation for Jones but expressed confidence it would not drag down Spanberger.
“Far and away the No. 1 issue in the governor’s race is the economy,” said the strategist, who was not authorized to comment publicly. “Spanberger is running to lower costs and protect jobs, while Sears is tied to Trump’s job and health care cuts. That was top of mind for voters last week and is again this week.”
The strategist predicted that “the same will be true every day until the election.”
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