Vice President JD Vance called for Virginia Democratic Attorney General candidate Jay Jones to drop out of the race after threatening text messages from Jones were leaked.
Jones reportedly texted a Virginia Republican in 2022 that he wished to shoot former Virginia House Speaker Dan Gilbert and wished violence on his children.
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Vance blasted Jones’s comments on Saturday, calling the Democrat a “very deranged person.”
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“The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages,” Vance posted on X. “I’m sure the people hyperventilating about sombrero memes will join me in calling for this very deranged person to drop out of the race.”
Jones had said he’d rather shoot Gilbert twice than kill dictators Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot.
The messages have drawn a bipartisan response for Jones to apologize or drop out of the Virginia attorney general’s race entirely. He’s currently running against incumbent Republican Jason Miyares.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) called Jones’s text messages “beyond disqualifying” earlier on Saturday.
Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger said she called Jones to express her “disgust” with the comments. Other Democrats have called for him to apologize, but no high-ranking Virginia Democrats have said he should drop out.
Jones cannot drop out of the race entirely. His name has been printed on ballots for weeks since early voting started, and some voters have likely already cast their ballot for him.
He apologized after an initial statement in which he suggested that many people send text messages they regret. Jones said he takes “full responsibility” for his comments and reached out to Gilbert to apologize to him and his family.
It’s unclear what effect the comments will have on Jones’s campaign, but it’s likely to be negative. He was leading in the polls against Miyares, as have the rest of Virginia’s statewide Democrats.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Miyares’s campaign but has not received a response.