An odd-year debate between candidates for state attorney general of Virginia does not usually draw much national attention.
But that was before the recent revelation that the Democratic candidate, Jay Jones, had sent text messages suggesting that the state’s Republican speaker deserved to be killed, mentioning the legislative leader alongside Hitler and Pol Pot.
From the start of the hourlong debate on Thursday, Jason Miyares, the Republican candidate and the state’s incumbent attorney general, leaped at the opportunity to hammer Mr. Jones, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, about the text messages, which have dominated the contest for days.
“Abraham Lincoln said that character is what you do in the dark when no one is watching,” Mr. Miyares said in his opening statement. “But now we know what he was doing in the dark.”
The text messages, sent to a colleague in 2022, called the speaker “evil,” and described the speaker’s children as “little fascists.” Mr. Jones also remarked that he would “piss on” the graves of certain Republican delegates when they died.
Mr. Jones has apologized for the texts, and did so again multiple times during Thursday’s debate at the University of Richmond. “Let me be very clear — I am ashamed,” he said. “I am embarrassed. And I am sorry.”
The incendiary texts transformed a race that was expected to be a referendum on President Trump’s record into one about Mr. Jones’s personal character.
The texts also carry extra significance as the country grapples with a spate of political violence, including the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September.
Republicans have called for Mr. Jones to drop out. And they have pressed Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, to urge Mr. Jones to step aside. She has condemned the messages but not said that Mr. Jones should leave the race.
Mr. Jones has also been forced to contend with a reckless driving conviction and accusations that he fulfilled his community service obligations by working at his own political action committee. During the debate, he stated that he had “completed the terms of the community service as outlined and approved” by the local attorney’s office and the county judge.
Mr. Jones sought to pivot the focus in the debate to Mr. Trump. Disapproval of Mr. Trump in Virginia has soared as his administration has unleashed mass firings of federal workers, many of whom live in the state’s northern suburbs.
Under Mr. Miyares, Mr. Jones said, Virginia has declined to participate in most of the lawsuits challenging Trump administration policies that have been filed by attorneys general in states around the country.
“For the last nine months, Donald Trump has run roughshod over this commonwealth,” Mr. Jones said. “Jason Miyares and his office have not lifted a single finger.”
Republicans, however, are now giving Mr. Jones a starring role in their own campaigns. Ms. Spanberger’s opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a socially conservative Republican, has seized on the scandal to boost her own fund-raising efforts, which have been comparatively lackluster.
One of Ms. Earle-Sears’s latest attack ads features a moment from the recent governor’s debate in which Ms. Spanberger looks on quietly as Ms. Earle-Sears presses her on the threatening texts and asks what it would take to call on Mr. Jones to drop out of the race. A bold tagline then flashes across the screen: “Abigail Spanberger — her silence says it all.”
Ms. Spanberger is still widely seen as the favorite to win her race, which, along with the contest for governor in New Jersey, will be closely watched next month as a bellwether of the country’s feelings about Mr. Trump and his administration.
Virginia’s odd-year elections usually tilt against the party that isn’t in the White House. And the party seems to have found a promising candidate in Ms. Spanberger, a former representative and a onetime C.I.A. officer whose moderate positions have found traction in the purple state.
Early voting, which began on Sept. 19 in Virginia, could help Mr. Jones still eke out a victory. More than 360,000 votes had already been cast by early October when Mr. Jones’s text messages came to light.
Amy Qin writes about Asian American communities for The Times.
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