Virginia’s wild election season

Editor’s note: This story contains references to pornography and sexual material and may not be suitable for all readers.

There’s plenty of drama in this year’s political races in Virginia—and it’s not just due to text messages about bullets.

On Tuesday, Virginians will go to the polls to select a new governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. While polling suggests Democrats are poised to take back the governor’s seat, controversy and scandal have roiled the downballot races—so much so that Virginians may vote for a split ticket for the first time in 20 years, electing candidates from both parties for statewide office.

Virginia is one of just a few states to hold odd-year elections, and pundits often view Virginia as a signal for national political trends. For over 40 years, Virginia has elected governors from the opposite party of the sitting president, and with Democratic candidate and former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger currently leading in the polls, this year may be no exception.

But when the downballot candidates include a gay Republican accused of reposting pornographic images online and a Democrat who supports gun control measures yet fantasized about shooting a colleague, it has made some of Virginia’s races tougher to call.

Earlier this month, the website American Journal News reported on online posts featuring gay pornographic images with a Nazi fetish shared on a now-deleted Tumblr blog allegedly connected to John Reid, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. The blog’s user name matched that of other social media accounts Reid uses.

Reid, who is openly gay, has denied any connection to the pornographic Tumblr blog, which first came to light back in April but was deleted soon after. (The more recent AJ News report dug up archived versions of the blog.)

At the time, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, asked Reid to drop out of the race, but Reid refused. The following month, Youngkin agreed to endorse the entire Republican ticket.

Christian organizations in Virginia have stayed largely silent about Reid. A voter guide compiled by the Virginia Catholic Conference does not mention the pornography allegations and only hints at his sexual orientation.

But will the controversy sway Virginia voters? People I spoke to at a coffee shop, flag football game, and parade in northern Virginia couldn’t name either Reid or Ghazala Hashmi, his Democratic opponent. None were aware of or concerned about the Tumblr controversy, either.

That may be because a text messaging scandal involving Jay Jones, Virginia’s Democratic attorney general candidate, still lingers in voters’ minds.

On Oct. 3, National Review revealed Jones sent text messages in 2022 saying that he fantasized about putting “two bullets to the head” of Virginia’s former Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert.

Earlier this summer, Jones led by as much as 9 points over Republican incumbent Jason Miyares. But within weeks, Jones’ lead had evaporated. A Christopher Newport University poll released Monday showed him losing by 1 percentage point, while the latest Washington Post numbers placed the two candidates in a dead heat.

Whether the scandal will have any significant effect on the governor’s race remains to be seen. Every major poll is predicting a victory for Spanberger, the Democratic candidate, over Republican rival Winsome Earle-Sears, the state’s current lieutenant governor. An immigrant from Jamaica, Earle-Sears is Virginia’s first female lieutenant governor.

Experts think the Jones texting scandal may remain confined to the attorney general race, thanks in part to the way people vote for statewide office in Virginia.

In Virginia, the races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general require three separate votes on the ballot. This means voters could conceivably select a Democrat for governor, a Republican for lieutenant governor, and write in an independent for attorney general, or any combination. They could also leave parts of their ballot blank.

Since there is no unified Democratic or Republican ticket, candidates from the same party can easily distance themselves from each other—especially if someone has been afflicted by scandal.

“They’re voting individually per voter, and that’s why we don’t see this bringing down Abigail Spanberger,” said David Ramadan, a political science professor at George Mason University. “People are looking at them as three individual candidates.”

After Jones’ text messages were reported, Spanberger immediately condemned them. But when asked during a debate whether she would ask him to withdraw from the race, she said, “We are all running our individual races. It is up to every person to make their own decision.”

Likewise, Earle-Sears has distanced herself from Reid. In a statement released after the accusations, she said, “It is his race, and his decision alone to move forward. We all have our own race to run.”

With Jones sinking in the polls and a tight race between Reid and Hashmi, Virginia could have a Democratic governor serving alongside a Republican lieutenant governor or attorney general.

Ramadan doubts a split like that will happen this year.

Voters are likely to vote along party lines, Ramadan said, and since Virginians are expected to vote for Spanberger to show their displeasure for President Trump, he adds that they are also more likely to leave the attorney general selection blank than switch their vote to Miyares.

“Are they going to hold their nose and vote for Jay Jones? Probably not,” he said. “Some will not, but they’re certainly not going to vote for the Republican in that scenario, who’s been endorsed by Donald Trump.”

Not everyone completely agrees with this analysis, though.

“I think Attorney General Miyares has it in the bag, quite frankly,” said Karen Hult, a political science professor at Virginia Tech. While she agrees Spanberger is likely to win the governor’s race, she predicts that Republican turn-out for Miyares—combined with Democrats skipping the attorney general race—will give Miyares a win.

President Trump on Oct. 20 offered a belated, informal endorsement for Earle-Sears, telling reporters, “I think the Republican candidate is very good and she should win because the Democrat candidate is a disaster.” Hult predicts that won’t be enough to eke out a win for Earle-Sears.

I spoke to voters in Fairfax County—a Democratic stronghold in northern Virginia—and many said they would vote Democrat straight down the ballot. Some said they would vote for Jones, too.

A retiree standing outside a coffee shop in Vienna told me he intends to vote Democrat, though he was still debating whether to cast a vote in the attorney general race. He said Jay Jones seemed like a “typical politician” but that he had bigger concerns, namely Trump.

“There’s enough trouble from on top of the government that I don’t need to pay attention to [Jones],” he said. “That’s small potatoes.”