Virginia Dem Voters Side With Assassination Fetishist Jay Jones

ARLINGTON, Va. — Come hell or high water, Democrats in Virginia are standing by their attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who fantasized about annihilating the family of his political opponents in order to get them to “move on policy.”

According to Democrat voters in one of the commonwealth’s bluest districts, “the alternative,” Attorney General Jason Miyares, R-Va. — who is most well known for conducting basic law enforcement duties, working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegals, and defending school children from “transgender” ideology — is much more dangerous.

In the final stretch of the Virginia election, with early voting season in full swing, The Federalist interviewed multiple Democrat voters outside Arlington County’s primary early voting location at Courthouse Plaza. None would give their names, but all justified voting for Jones despite his desire to commit gruesome acts of violence over political disagreements.

Each Democrat was very much aware of how abhorrent the comments were, but was committed to sticking by him anyway. The underlying drive for their support seems to be their idea that their cause is existential and the ends justify all behavior, including talking in a very serious way about the murder of political opponents and their families.

“You gotta fight hardball the same way they do,” one middle-aged white male Democrat who had just cast his ballot for Jones told The Federalist. He explained that the text messages did not change his vote, but it “made me hesitant.” He added that if it were a primary, he would not vote for him.

That being said, this Democrat expressed that overlooking Jones’ violent fantasies was acceptable “considering the alternative,” and he indicated that Democrats are justified in supporting someone as violent as Jones “because of Trump.”

While he did not explain at all what that meant, and actually scoffed and laughed when asked to do so, he said it’s “Trump and the Republican attitude of, you know, that we’re basically in a dictatorship at this point.”

Each Democrat said something similar.

That is quite a different stance from that of a Republican who told The Federalist that she does not understand how Democrats could keep supporting someone who “wants to be the attorney general and control all the laws in Virginia, but he wants to kill all his opponents.”

Speaking like they had achieved a rhetorical “checkmate,” some voters who spoke with The Federalist suggested that Jones’ comments were actually pretty benign because he did not have an active plan to follow through with the assassination of his opponent.

Even if he did have such a plan, it is hard to see how some of the Democrats voting for Jones would have changed their minds.

One middle-aged white woman who refused to claim party identification or disclose whom she voted for seemed to fall into this category. Although she did not confirm any of her voting information, her politics were pretty clear as she profusely thanked Democrat poll greeters and sneered at the Republican greeter.

On top of that, she claimed that journalists are “literally … unsafe” right now because of the Trump administration. But when told that journalists are doing just fine, she asked, in typical existential left-wing doomer fashion, “I mean, are any of us fine?”

When asked more specifically about Jones’ comments and reminded that he fantasized about shooting a Republican in the head twice and the death of his children, the woman became extremely defensive.

“Did he? Was he planning for that? Is that what the media is saying?” she said, implying that the media had distorted the story into portraying Jones as saying something violent.

She was reminded that Jones did not deny any of it, and did not deny any of the framing, but continued ranting, “As a media person, you have, you have a responsibility to really look at what he said, the context of how he said it, and are you part of the problem spinning out stories of like he said he was going to assassinate somebody?”

“Do you think he was intending to kill somebody?” she said, once again defensively. “I don’t know what his intent was.”

Regarding whether she voted for Jones, she said the text messages “didn’t sway my vote,” and she seemed to write off Jones as simply being a victim of a “polarized” political culture.

Another white female, this time a retired federal worker and Democrat volunteer, agreed, telling The Federalist, “Well, he didn’t take any of those actions. He said things, but he didn’t do anything.

“I want an attorney general that’s going to support — well, hopefully that Abigail Spanberger wins the race — and so you want an attorney general that will support her agenda. And so that’s why I’m still voting for him,” she said. “Most of his policies I agree with, and so I’m not going to vote against my own wishes. He stands for abortion rights, Planned Parenthood, you know, I think they support the DEI initiatives where Miyares, you know, and Youngkin didn’t protect the president of [the University of Virginia] from being removed from his position.”

Spanberger, the Democrat nominee for governor, has refused multiple times to call for Jones to drop out of the race.

Although the Democrat volunteer did say she would prefer another candidate now, “you can’t substitute a candidate this late in the race,” and so when deciding about conceding the race or electing Jones, the political win was apparently more important because of the Democrat preference to “stop the Trump agenda.”

She said her husband is “plugging his nose” and voting for Jones, and that many of her Democrat friends felt the same way.

One black male voter, likely in his mid-thirties, and who identified himself as a Democrat and government worker, told The Federalist he voted for Jones as well. He repeated the talking point from many Democrats that Jones simply made “mistakes.”

When asked how he would respond to Republican voters’ concerns that the potential top law enforcement officer in Virginia has fantasized about murdering people who think like them and their children, the voter laughed.

“It’s crazy to think that they would be worried about him and not about our current federal government,” he said.

He did not articulate why anyone would be worried about the current federal government.

That did not matter, however.

When confronted by the fact that none of the Republicans they believe are so dangerous ever talked about annihilating families like Jones did, several Democrats responded at first with a dumbfounded pause, an acknowledgment that no Republican had done that, and then immediately switched into drone mode, lazily regurgitating nearly identical rhetoric seemingly spoon-fed to them by the same source.

“You can’t put in for this and then tear apart a family of immigrants,” the government worker said.

Another retired federal worker, who did not identify with either party and said he was undecided but leans left, said he probably would have voted for Jones prior to the text scandal, but that now he is unsure and “still may.”

“What he said was absolutely horrible. It was unacceptable. So I’m struggling now,” he told The Federalist. However, he did say that he did not like how Miyares was focused on helping ICE deport illegals and trying to eradicate “transgender” ideology from schools.

Virginia’s election is on Nov. 4, and to date, not one major Democrat has called for Jones to drop out, and to the extent that any have condemned his text messages, they have been weak condemnations at best.

Democrats are actually doubling down on support for Jones, and even self-proclaimed moderate Democrats like U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., are headlining campaign events with Jones.

As one of a few states with off-year elections, Virginia has a long-running history of choosing statewide leadership from the party opposite to the new party in the White House that won the year prior.

That means, if the pattern sticks, Democrats have something of an institutional advantage this year. Although Jones’ poll numbers have dropped since the texts were revealed, there is still a very real chance he becomes Virginia’s next attorney general.

Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.