Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) would not answer whether she still endorses Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones at the Virginia gubernatorial debate on Thursday amid the fallout over his violent texts, but she did not call on him to exit the race.
Spanberger was asked by the moderators whether she was aware of Jones’s text messages before they were released and whether she would continue to endorse him.
“The comments that Jay Jones [made] are absolutely abhorrent,” Spanberger said. “I denounced them when I learned of them and I will denounce them every opportunity that I get. As a mother, as a public servant, as a candidate for governor, I denounce them.”
“It is important that candidates always denounce violence no matter which side of the aisle,” she continued. “We should always be focused and forceful in our denouncement of it.”
Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, her opponent, then interrupted Spanberger, who said that Earle-Sears “only denounces violence when her side is the target.”
When pressed by the moderators on whether she would continue to back Jones, Spanberger said she will leave that to voters.
“The voters now have the information and it’s up to voters to make a choice based on this information,” Spanberger said.
“We are all running our individual races,” she said. “It is up to every person to make their own decision.”
Prior to Spanberger being asked about the texts, Earle-Sears sought to pin the issue on her after first being asked about the car tax.
“Really what I want to ask this first question is, Abigail, when are you going to take Jay Jones and say to him you must leave the race?” Earle-Sears said. “He has said that he wants to murder his political opponent, and not only that, but his political opponent’s children.”
Spanberger did not answer Earle-Sears’s questions to her directly.
Jones, who was not in elected office at the time, sent texts about shooting former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R) to Republican state Del. Carrie Coyner in 2022.
“Three people, two bullets,” Jones wrote in a text to Coyner about Gilbert.
“Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot,” Jones wrote. “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”
“Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time,” Jones told Coyner.
Coyner, in response, told Jones to stop.
Spanberger’s campaign was quick to make her displeasure with the texts known, releasing a statement saying she had conveyed her “disgust” to Jones in a conversation. However, Republicans, including President Trump, were quick to argue that Spanberger did not go far enough in not calling on Jones to drop out of the race.