The texts from a Democrat who had served in the Virginia House were explosive. In one exchange, he suggested that the chamber’s Republican speaker deserved to be killed, mentioning the legislative leader alongside Hitler and Pol Pot.
Now, the Democrat, Jay Jones, is his party’s candidate in next month’s election for state attorney general, and the recent revelation of his three-year-old messages have sparked a fierce outcry from Republicans and rattled the Democratic ticket in a state where the party has had a commanding edge in the closely watched race for governor.
The messages have prompted Republicans to demand that Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor, withdraw her support for Mr. Jones, who has apologized and vowed to stay in the race to be the state’s next attorney general.
In a statement, Mr. Jones referred to the messages as a “grave mistake” and said he was ashamed to have sent them.
The emergence of the incendiary texts, first reported by National Review, comes as the country is grappling with the growing specter of political violence, particularly since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In June, Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband were killed at their home in a Minneapolis suburb, and last month the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a close ally of President Trump’s, was killed at a college in Utah.
Discourse in American politics has turned increasingly vulgar in the decade since Donald J. Trump launched his first bid for the White House, as he made coarse insults and brazen threats part of his public rhetoric, and others followed his lead.
The exchange in question took place in August 2022, as Republicans in the House of Delegates were offering praise to Joe Johnson Jr., a former delegate and moderate Democrat who had recently died. In response, Mr. Jones, who had resigned from the chamber several months earlier, texted Carrie Coyner, a Republican delegate and one of Mr. Jones’s former colleagues.
The texts, which appear to have been at first intended for someone else, initially criticized Mr. Johnson for having been too closely aligned with the state’s Republicans, and insinuated Mr. Johnson had only received their praise because he’d leaked information to them in the past.
But Mr. Jones’s invective against Republicans in the chamber escalated as his exchange with Ms. Coyner continued.
At one point, he remarked that he would “piss on” the graves of certain Republican delegates when they died. He went on to posit a hypothetical scenario in which he had a gun, two bullets, and the choice to shoot Adolf Hitler, the former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, and then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican. In such a scenario, Mr. Jones said, he would shoot Mr. Gilbert twice.
“Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time,” Mr. Jones wrote.
A spokesman for Ms. Coyner provided context on Tuesday for that particular comment. The spokesman said Mr. Jones made the remark as Mr. Gilbert took his turn on the statehouse floor to eulogize Mr. Johnson.
Ms. Coyner pushed back on Mr. Jones’s remarks at several points in their exchange, saying it bothered her when he talked about wishing harm or death on others. According to Ms. Coyner’s spokesman, the two then spoke over the phone, and Mr. Jones discussed the hypothetical death of Mr. Gilbert’s children.
In texts that followed that call, Mr. Jones appeared to stand by those remarks, even as Ms. Coyner voiced alarm.
“You were talking about hopping jennifer Gilbert’s children would die,” Ms. Coyner wrote in one message, referring to Mr. Gilbert’s wife and misspelling the word “hoping.”
“Yes, I’ve told you this before,” Mr. Jones replied. “Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
In a later message, he added: “I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes.”
In his statement, Mr. Jones said he had contacted Mr. Gilbert and his family to express regret for his past remarks. Mr. Gilbert did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
“I have reached out to Speaker Gilbert to apologize directly to him, his wife, Jennifer, and their children,” Mr. Jones said. “I cannot take back what I said; I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology.”
Mr. Jones, 36, spent about four years in the Legislature, starting in 2017. In 2021, he ran briefly for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. He resigned from the House of Delegates later that year to focus on his family as he and his wife prepared for the arrival of a child. Mr. Jones’s father, Jerrauld C. Jones, who died earlier this year, had a long career in Virginia government, including more than a decade in the State Legislature.
In a statement, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican and Mr. Jones’s opponent in next month’s election, described Mr. Jones’s texts to Ms. Coyner as “disqualifying.”
“Jay Jones wished for the violent death of a political opponent and then fantasized about that opponent’s children dying in their mother’s arms,” Mr. Miyares said. “When confronted, he doubled down, saying that kind of grief and pain would be a good thing if it advanced his politics. And politics aside, one has to be coming from a dark place to advocate the murder of a colleague and their family.”
Since the texts surfaced, top Republicans, including President Trump, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, and Winsome Earle-Sears, the lieutenant governor and Ms. Spanberger’s opponent in the race for governor, have called for Mr. Jones to drop out. They’ve also pressed Ms. Spanberger, who is ahead of Ms. Earle-Sears in recent polling, to urge Mr. Jones to step aside.
Ms. Spanberger, for her part, said in a statement to news media last week that she had spoken with Mr. Jones about her “disgust” at the contents of the messages, but stopped short of revoking her support for him. A spokeswoman for Ms. Spanberger did not respond to requests for comment .
“I made clear to Jay that he must fully take responsibility for his words,” Ms. Spanberger said. “What I have also made clear is that as a candidate — and as the next governor of our commonwealth, I will always condemn violent language in our politics.”
The contest for governor of Virginia — one of only two governor’s races to take place in the year following a presidential election — often attracts national attention as an early indicator of voters’ attitudes toward a new administration in the White House.
Ben Tribbett, a Virginia-based Democratic strategist, said he didn’t expect the firestorm over the texts to significantly affect the governor’s race. Voters are likely already familiar with both candidates, he said, noting that other issues, like the government shutdown, may overshadow the text messages. But the outcry over Mr. Jones’s remarks could affect the attorney general’s race, where the margins are narrower and public perception of the candidates is less established, he said.
“I also don’t think it’s out of the question that Jay could come in and still win the election,” Mr. Tribbett said. “But it’s going to be an awfully painful month for him trying to explain this.”
Chris Hippensteel is a reporter covering breaking news and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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