The Virginia gubernatorial race was supposed to be the Democratic Party’s way of saying, in 2025, that they were so back.

And now it’s hit the skids, thanks to the fact that the nominee won’t just not withdraw her endorsement of a guy who fantasized about murdering his political opponents, she will spend an inordinate amount of debate time trying to dodge the question of whether she’ll un-endorse him.

For political pundits and junkies, the three major 2025 races — New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial contests and the New York City mayoralty — are considered auguries of not only how the new administration is doing but how well the opposition party will do in the midterms the next year.

For instance, in 1993, the unexpected victories of GOP-ers Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey and Rudy Giuliani in New York City foreshadowed the 1994 Republican revolution in both houses of Congress. Glenn Youngkin’s surprise 2021 win in the Virginia gubernatorial, meanwhile, cemented education reform as a huge winning issue for Republicans.

As for positive signs out of 2025 for the Democrats, they were supposed to be there — and they haven’t been. In New York, an internecine squabble between the two worst factions of that city’s party — the Cuomo machine and the followers of Zohran
“Globalize the Intifada” Mamdani — have dominated the headlines.

Over the river in New Jersey, Rep. Mikie Sherrill was supposed to be a shoo-in for the governor’s mansion, but has underperformed in the polls against Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli, even though she’s still the favorite.

In Virginia, however, Rep. Abigail Spanberger was supposed to be the bright spot shining toward the future. She was billed as a moderate. She has a huge following in the D.C. suburbs. She’s maintained a healthy polling lead. And then along came Virginia Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones — or rather, his old text messages.

Discussing Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican, in 2022, Jones said, “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”

After a spate of sorta-apologies — along with Spanberger saying “he must fully take responsibility for his words” (as if responsibility was being ascribed to anyone else — Democrats were probably hoping this was over. Then, a Republican lawmaker alleged Jones had told her regarding qualified immunity for police officers, “maybe if a few of them [cops] died, that they would move on, not shooting people, not killing people.”

Jones denied those comments, but he has not held a public event since Friday, when the text messages were first reported by National Review, and outlets reported his campaign was “in crisis mode.” Quelle surprise.

On Thursday, at the Virginia gubernatorial debate, Spanberger was given a chance to call for Jones to do more than just “fully tak[ing] responsibility for his words,” withdraw her endorsement, and say that she was unaware these text messages existed before endorsing him.

Here is a solid 65 seconds of her not doing that, from the social media account of Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the GOP gubernatorial candidate:

It shouldn’t take this many words to say fantasizing about murder is wrong and that Jay Jones needs to go. pic.twitter.com/EVuOpk2Ksj

— Winsome Earle-Sears (@winwithwinsome) October 9, 2025

Even Bernie Sanders could have delivered that better.

Just so we’re clear, here’s the official Spanberger line to whether she will continue to endorse Jay Jones and whether she was aware of those messages:

Uh, in fact, it appears that it was the, uh, those who released the text messages and held them for years. So the public was unaware who had knowledge of those text messages for many years. I learned of those text messages the day they came out and I denounced them as soon as I learned of them. And importantly, um, at this point, as we move forward, the voters now have this information, information that was with– withheld for them, presumably for political reasons. Uh, but the voters now have the information and it is up to voters, uh, to make an individual choice based on this information. 

Yeah, OK — but, as the moderator noted, that’s not really an answer. So, care to answer?

TL;DR: No.

I — we are all running our individual races. I believe my opponent has said that about her lieutenant governor nominee, and it’s up to every person to make their decision. I am running my race to serve Virginia and that is what I intend to do.

So in other words, she’s not going to un-endorse a guy who wants to put two bullets in the head of the speaker of the Virginia House speaker but, you know, the voters have that information that she’s condemning it. But not really, at least in any substantive way. Thanks for coming, everyone.

I didn’t think that kind of abhorrently pusillanimous non-answer would get a Republicans Pounce!™ response from the media — but here’s CNN, reliably making me throw up in my throat just a little bit with their reporting on the exchange:

Earle-Sears pounced, saying she wondered “why she won’t say it is not okay and that he must leave the race,” pointing out that Jones’ text messages also included suggesting his Republican colleague’s two young children should die.

“You have little girls. Would it take him pulling the trigger? Is that what would do it, and then you would say he needs to get out of the race?” Earle-Sears said. “Abigail, you have nothing to say?”

Spanberger didn’t respond.

At least the Jake Tapper Network had the common decency to note that Spanberger didn’t have the common decency to respond to what she’d do if a Republican threatened her kids via text message — but the fact that this merited a Republicans Pounce!™ is bad enough, thank you very much.

There is a practical reason for the reason to un-endorse, as CNN pointed out: Specifically, under Virginia law, Jones is not in a position to take himself off the ballot at this point. That doesn’t matter as regards to principle.

The fact remains that this is a prima facie mentally ill man who — barring Virginians not reading the news or an absolute Democratic landslide statewide that sweeps this psychopath into office with it — will lose. Party loyalty should have nothing to do with it.

At this point, all Spanberger has to do is say no, she’s not continuing to endorse the guy, and no, it isn’t OK to hide behind the idea that these were just messages held back for political purposes. Quite the opposite happened, actually — even if she looked miserable delivering the lines.

Thanks to that, the one off-year slam-dunk the Democrats should have had has gone to pieces. Fitting, though. In NYC and Virginia, candidates who are more or less OK with murder — so long as it’s “the intifada” or grotesque text messages — might well win, and the one who didn’t get a chance to opine on the specter of political death could lose. If there’s any justice, all three will face defeat.

Your Democratic Party, America.

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