Jay Jones is a Disgrace. Democrats, be Ashamed.

Photo via Politico

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By all accounts, the Democratic Party performed incredibly well in the 2025 election cycle. Headlined by Zohran Mamdani’s historic win in the New York City Mayoral race, Democrats won races up and down the ballot across the country. The Democrats’ amazing night also included flipping the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, breaking the supermajority in the Mississippi State Senate, and the overwhelming passage of the highly contentious Proposition 50 in California. The party nearly ran the table on hundreds of other state, country, city, and local elections, capping off a night described by many analysts as a strong rebuke of Republican President Donald Trump. 

On the other side of the aisle, Vivek Ramaswammy, 2024 Presidential candidate, former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) co-chair, and current candidate for governor of Ohio, put it simply: “We got our asses handed to us.” Many Trump allies were quick to blame candidate quality. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) described election night as a “disaster.” The Democratic victory and ensuing Republican panic-and-blame-fest have obscured the single biggest story of Election Night 2025: Jay Jones is the attorney general-elect in Virginia. 

Jones is the first African American to be elected Virginia Attorney General, and is poised to join the history-making administration of Abigail Spanberger, who will serve as Virginia’s first female governor. This is not the story, however. To use Senator Cruz’s words, Jay Jones is nothing short of a disaster. He is a disgrace to the party, to politics, and to every value America claims to hold so dear. Jay Jones should never have run for Attorney General. Jay Jones should have dropped out of the race. Now, Jay Jones must resign immediately. 

In October 2025, Newsweek dropped a bombshell: “Three people, two bullets. [Then Virginia Speaker of the House Todd] Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets in the head.” Word-for-word, these are actual texts Jay Jones sent in 2022 to his then-friend, fellow State Representative Carrie Coyner. Coyner expressed horror at these messages; Jones only doubled down, calling for the death of Gilbert’s children because “only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.” 

Jones went on to claim that Gilbert and his wife, Jennifer, were “evil” and “breeding little fascists.” When politicians on both sides of the aisle mourned Joe Johnson Jr., a moderate Democrat and former state legislator, Jones expressed outrage and vowed that he would “go to their funerals to p*** on their graves.” 

Jay Jones’ tirade of violence and hate was unrelenting. When Coyner pushed back and pleaded with Jones to stop, he instead went further, calling Coyner and reiterating his wish for Gilbert’s children to die. Jones expressed no remorse or apology for his remarks until Newsweek brought the messages to light three years later. When he did finally apologize, the written statement was shallow, vague, and completely unmoving. Jones claimed to local media to be “deeply, deeply sorry for what I said and I wish that it hadn’t happened and I would take it back if I could.” 

Jones is clearly not sorry for what he said; he is simply sorry that Newsweek exposed his vile character. In three years, he made no personal apology to Coyner, Gilbert, or anyone involved. After the story broke, he still refused to do so. Republicans, including his opponent, incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, outgoing Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, President Trump, and many others, immediately called on Jones to drop out when the messages were released. After his half-hearted apology, they did not accept it and instead doubled down on their calls for Jones to withdraw from the race.  

Jones soundly refused to do so. In his victory speech, he thanked everyone who “didn’t give up on this campaign.” For the sake of accuracy, he probably should’ve thanked the entire Democratic establishment for giving up their principles. Three days before the election, Jones opened a major Democratic rally in Virginia to loud cheers. A stream of Democratic speakers followed, including Democratic Representative Bobby Scott, State Senator Lamont Bagby, and Sen. Tim Kaine, all urging voters to support Jones. 

Spanberger, who had previously called Jones’ comments “abhorrent” but refused to call on him to drop out, continued her policy of distancing herself and made no mention of Jones in her remarks. Former President Barack Obama, the rally’s headliner, also said nothing about Jones. On the biggest stage of the entire race, the entire party lined up and, either directly or tacitly, endorsed calls for political violence. This is not only grossly inappropriate and irresponsible. It is hypocrisy in its purest form. 

On the first anniversary of the January 6th attack, Obama blasted the politicians who “fanned the flames of violence” and warned that democracy was at a greater risk than ever due to the threat of political violence. In the aftermath of the attack, Senator Kaine lamented that “unchallenged evil spreads like a virus.” Yet neither Obama, Kaine, nor any of the hundreds of Democratic politicians who steadfastly and rightly condemn the violent, hateful language that led to January 6th stood on that stage and condemned that same language by one of their own. 

The (D) next to Jay Jones’ name does nothing to lessen the extreme hate that he continually spread. The Democratic Party cannot claim that they are the party fighting to defend America’s democratic institutions from the overbearing threat of political violence from the right while allowing it to fester under its own tent. In September 2022, President Joe Biden delivered his famous “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” speech in the run-up to the midterms. In this speech, he framed their efforts to oppose MAGA extremism and calls for violence as above politics—as a part of the sacred fibers of America that must be preserved. 

In June 2025, America was given a glimpse into Jay Jones’ vision of the country. Mellisa Hortman, the Democratic Speaker of the Minnesota State House, was assassinated in her own home. Her husband and dog were killed as well. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were seriously injured in their home as well. It was a day of staggering and shocking political violence in America. The parallels are striking. Jay Jones called for the murder of a State House Speaker. Minnesota’s was murdered. Jones believes personal pain as a result of violence is the only way to get politicians to “move on policy.” Hortman’s assassin was driven by anti-abortion ideology. 

That night in Independence, Pennsylvania, Joe Biden talked of America as a “nation that rejects violence as a political tool.” The Minnesota assassin had a “hit list” of dozens of politicians who supported access to abortion. To him, violence clearly was a political tool. One can argue that Jay Jones obviously never intended to shoot Todd Gilbert or kill his children to gain political leverage, and that, of course, would be true. That is also completely irrelevant. 

There are many who intend to carry out these threats. Look no further than January 6th or Mellisa Hortman’s grave if there are any lingering doubts on this point. In the wake of these tragedies, Democrats hit the nail on the head in their warnings that a climate of violent political rhetoric eventually leads to real violence. 

There is absolutely no place in America for political violence or language that incites it. Period, end of story. It does not matter in the slightest where those involved fall on the ideological spectrum. The Democratic Party completely failed in its handling of the Jay Jones situation. Look at yourselves in the mirror. Read your past statements. Do some soul searching and ask yourself, is the “soul of the nation, ” the founding principles of civil politics, and everything American stands for, really worth less than flipping the Virginia Attorney General’s office? The answer should be abundantly clear. 

In short, America deserves better. Jay Jones, resign immediately. Democrats, put country over party, not just in your statements against the MAGA movement but in your actions within your own party. Empty talk and false resolve mean nothing. A picture is worth a thousand words: The image of Jay Jones defiantly declaring victory on election night is nothing short of horrifying.

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This article was edited by Alissa Mili and Sofia Alvarez.