What to know about the only debate between Virginia’s attorney general candidates

WASHINGTON — Virginia’s attorney general candidates, Republican incumbent Jason Miyares and Democratic former Del. Jay Jones, are set to debate in Richmond on Thursday night while the statewide race continues to permeate the national political spotlight amid controversy. 

It’s the only scheduled debate in the United States’ only state attorney general race of 2025. You can stream the full thing on WUSA9+ from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday Oct. 16. The debate will be held at the University of Richmond and was open to the public although tickets have sold out. 

Early voting has already begun in Virginia. Election day in the commonwealth is Tuesday Nov. 4. 

Miyares, 49, has been the Virginia attorney general since 2022. Before that, Miyares served in the Virginia House of Delegates for six years, representing parts of Virginia Beach. 

Jones, 36, served two terms in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2018 to 2022. His former constituency, district 89, covers parts of Norfolk. Republican Del. Baxter Ennis, now represents that district. 

Jones had previously sought the role of AG in 2021 but was eliminated in that year’s Democratic primaries, losing to then-incumbent Attorney General Mark Herring. Miyares defeated Herring by a margin of about 27,000 votes in November of that year.

Since the Oct. 3 release of violent texts sent by Jones to a former colleague, the commonwealth’s attorney general race has gained national attention. 

In the messages from 2022, Jones compared the then-Republican Speaker of the House of Delegates Todd Gilbert to Adolf Hitler, saying that, in a hypothetical scenario, he would shoot Gilbert before shooting the genocidal Nazi dictator. Jones also said he believed Gilbert and his wife were “breeding little fascists,” admitting that he hoped their children would die to help motivate Gilbert to change his politics. 

“Put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time,” Jones wrote to a former Republican colleague from the House of Delegates. 

Also in the messages, Jones said that if some of his Republican colleagues died before him that he would “go to their funerals to piss on their graves.” 

Republicans, including President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Gov. Glenn Youngkin have called on Jones to drop out.

“It has just come out that the radical left lunatic, Jay Jones, who is running against Jason Miyares, the great attorney general in Virginia, made sick and demented jokes, if they were jokes at all, which were not funny, and that he wrote down and sent around to people, concerning people, concerning the murdering of a Republican legislator, his wife and their children,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Oct. 5. “… Jones should drop out of the race, immediately.” 

Miyares called Jones’ texts “disqualifying.” 

“Before this last week, we knew Jay Jones had dangerously soft policies on criminal justice that put the lives of ordinary Virginians at risk, but now he’s made no secret about his radical understanding of power,” Miyares wrote. 

Jones apologized for the texts after they were released, claiming he also reached out directly to the former speaker and his family to say sorry. 

“Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed and sorry,” Jones wrote while still vowing to remain in the race. “… Virginians deserve honest leaders who admit when they are wrong and own up to their mistakes. This was a grave mistake, and I will work every day to prove to the people of Virginia that I will fight for them as attorney general.”

Jones campaign has declined requests from WUSA9 for an interview. 

Jones’ texts were also a debate topic during the Virginia governor’s  race between Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle Sears and Democratic Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger. 

Earle-Sears joined the Republican chorus calling on Jones to drop out and said her opponent, Spanberger, should drop out by association. Spanberger condemned Jones’ texts but has stopped short of asking the attorney general to drop out, side-stepping a question in last Thursday’s debate about whether she would retract her endorsement of Jones, instead saying she would leave the race up to voters. 

Spanberger went on to accuse Earle-Sears of applying a double standard to Democratic politicians, claiming the lieutenant governor had also said harmful things, like calling Spanberger her “enemy.” 

A Christopher Newport University poll of 805 likely voters, conducted the week before Jones’ text messages were released, showed the Democrat with 6 percentage point lead over Miyares. Jones had been running slightly behind his other Democratic counterparts in statewide races, with Spanberger leading Earle-Sears by 10 points and Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi leading Republican John Reid by nine points, according to CNU’s polling. 

There has been limited polling on the attorney general race since Jones’ 2022 texts were released. 

Miyares was born in Greensboro, N.C. but grew up in Virginia Beach. A Cuban-American, Miyares was the first Latino elected to statewide office in Virginia. Miyares has touted the immigration story of his mother, Miriam Miyares, who fled from the Caribbean island nation. 

Miyares attended college and law school in Virginia, earning a bachelor’s in business administration from James Madison University in Harrisonburg and his juris doctor from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg . 

Campaign ads from Miyares have called attention to Jones’ text messages. Prior to their release, Miyares’ campaign also criticized Jones’ voting record on crime, specifically calling out the Democratic candidates votes for an earned-credit system for prisoners that would allow for shorter sentences for some felons. 

On his campaign site, Miyares has touted his support for paying NCAA while also calling attention to opioid addiction and immigration. During his tenure as attorney general, Miyares has supported efforts to limit cellphone and social media use among teens and children, calling apps and websites like TikTok and Facebook “dangerous” and a threat to kids’ mental health.

Jones was born in Norfolk. At the time of his birth, Jones’ father, Jerrauld Jones, was the Democratic delegate for the commonwealth’s 89th district — the district Jay Jones would go on to represent. Jerrauld Jones held that seat from 1988 to 2002, serving afterward as a circuit court judge until his death in May. 

Jay Jones attended both undergrad and law school in the Commonwealth, earning a bachelor’s degree in government and history from William and Mary and a law degree from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

In Jones’ campaign ads, the Democrat criticized Miyares’ support for an abortion ban in the commonwealth and accused the incumbent attorney general of aligning himself with Trump on health care policy. 

In February 2024, a bipartisan subcommittee of the Virginia General Assembly unanimously rejected a Youngkin-supported law that would have banned all abortions, with the exception of health threats to a mother’s life, inside the commonwealth. 

At an anti-abortion rally in February 2023, Miyares said he opposed prosecuting women who have abortions, saying that March For Life activists should focus on donating to charities that support mothers, instead. 

“The pro-life message is one of compassion,” Miyares said. “And there have been some voices in this country saying we should prosecute women who make the decision to have an abortion. That is not right.” 

The most recent campaign ad posted to Jones’ campaign’s Youtube channel was on Sept. 26, before his texting scandal. Comments to those ads have been turned off. 

Jones’ campaign website, advertises pro abortion policies and a plan for “protecting Virginia against the Trump administration,” calling Trump’s purge of federal workers and tariff policies, “unconstitutional and un-American.”