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| Elections in Virginia |
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The 2025 Virginia Attorney General election will be held on November 4, 2025, to elect the attorney general of Virginia. The incumbent Republican attorney general, Jason Miyares, is running for re-election. The in-person early voting period runs from September 19 to November 1, 2025. [1]
Statewide officials
Teo Armus of The Washington Post described the primary as a proxy battle between Dominion Energy and Clean Virginia, an environmental group meant to counter Dominion's influence in Virginia elections. Shannon Taylor received over $800,000 from Dominion, its largest ever contribution in a single race. [4] Jay Jones received $579,000 from Clean Virginia. [5]
| Poll source | Date(s) administered | Sample size [a] | Margin of error | Jay Jones | Shannon Taylor | Undecided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global Strategy Group (D) [22] [A] | March 11–13, 2025 | 600 (LV) | ± 4.0% | 15% | 25% | 60% |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Jay Jones | 252,976 | 51.11% | |
| Democratic | Shannon Taylor | 241,969 | 48.89% | |
| Total votes | 494,945 | 100.00% | ||
In October, a month before the election, a 2022 text conversation that Jay Jones had with Republican delegate Carrie Coyner following the death of former delegate Democrat Joe Johnson Jr. was made public by National Review . In the texts, Jones made disparaging remarks toward Republican members of the House, stating, "If those guys die before me I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves." Jones then followed up the remark by targeting then-Speaker of the House of Delegates Republican Todd Gilbert, giving a scenario in which Gilbert would be shot twice in the head. Jones said, "Three people, two bullets, Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head. Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know, and he receives both bullets every time." Jones would then take his remarks further, targeting Gilbert's children, wishing death upon them, and stating that Gilbert and his wife were "evil" and "breeding little fascists." [24] [25] [26] [27]
Jones has received bipartisan condemnation for his texts. His Democratic running mates Abigail Spanberger, for governor, and Ghazala Hashmi, for lieutenant governor, both issued statements condemning Jones. Spanberger stated that she had spoken with Jones regarding her "disgust". Meanwhile, Hashmi stated, "I condemn it at every turn, Jay must take accountability for the pain that his words have caused", along with U.S. Senator Mark Warner writing that Jones's comments are "appalling, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the person [he's] known." [28] Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell called the texts "a serious lapse in judgment that cannot be defended," while current Virginia House Speaker Don Scott condemned the remarks but stated that "we can't get distracted, because they want us to get distracted by the text message here or something else. Stay focused." [27] Republicans, including Governor Glenn Youngkin, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Vice President JD Vance, have called for Jones to withdraw from the race. [29] [30]
In Jones's initial statement following the publication, he accused his opponent of "dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign" and stated that his opponent "will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia." [31] Prior to the article, it had come out that in the same year, Jones was charged with reckless driving after driving 116 miles per hour on Interstate 64 in New Kent County. Despite Virginia's mandatory one-year jail sentence for reckless driving, Jones was sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service, half of which he served working for his own PAC, Meet Our Moment, along with a $1,500 fine. [32] Jones would later issue a statement taking responsibility for the text messages and apologized to Gilbert and his family. [33]
There will be one streamed debate, on October 16, hosted by the University of Richmond. [34]
| No. | Date | Host | Moderator | Link | Republican | Democratic |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key: P Participant A Absent N Not invited I Invited W Withdrawn | ||||||
| Miyares* | Jones | |||||
| 1 | October 16, 2025 | Virginia Bar Association University of Richmond | TBD | I | I | |
Predictions
| Source | Ranking | As of |
|---|---|---|
| State Navigate [35] | Likely D (flip) | October 13, 2025 |
| Sabato's Crystal Ball [36] | Lean D (flip) | August 21, 2025 |
Aggregate polls
| Source of poll aggregation | Dates administered | Dates updated | Jason Miyares (R) | Jay Jones (D) | Other/Undecided [b] | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RealClearPolitics [57] | September 29 – October 10, 2025 | October 15, 2025 | 46.0% | 45.3% | 8.7% | Miyares +0.7% |
| Decision Desk HQ [58] | through October 15, 2025 | October 15, 2025 | 46.4% | 46.4% | 7.2% | Tied |
| Average | 46.2% | 45.85% | 7.95% | Miyares +0.35% | ||
| Poll source | Date(s) administered | Sample size [a] | Margin of error | Jason Miyares (R) | Jay Jones (D) | Other | Undecided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Trafalgar Group (R) [59] | October 8–10, 2025 | 1,034 (LV) | ± 2.9% | 49% | 43% | – | 8% |
| Cygnal (R) [60] [B] | October 6–7, 2025 | 600 (LV) | ± 4.0% | 46% | 44% | – | 10% |
| Hart Research (D) [61] [C] | October 4–6, 2025 | 600 (LV) | – | 45% | 46% | – | 9% |
| Jay Jones text messages leak | |||||||
| Christopher Newport University [62] | September 29 – October 1, 2025 | 805 (RV) | ± 3.9% | 43% | 49% | – | 8% |
| The Trafalgar Group (R) [63] | September 29 – October 1, 2025 | 1,034 (LV) | ± 2.9% | 45% | 49% | – | 6% |
| The Washington Post/Schar School [64] | September 25–29, 2025 | 1,002 (LV) | ± 3.4% | 45% | 51% | 1% [c] | 3% |
| 1,002 (RV) | 42% | 48% | 6% [d] | 3% | |||
| A2 Insights [65] | September 16–28, 2025 | 771 (LV) | – | 46% | 49% | 1% [e] | 5% |
| OnMessage Inc. (R) [66] | September 15–18, 2025 | 800 (V) | ± 3.5% | 46% | 46% | – | 8% |
| Christopher Newport University [67] | September 8–14, 2025 | 808 (RV) | ± 3.9% | 41% | 48% | – | 12% |
| Cygnal (R) [60] [B] | September 7, 2025 | – | – | 43% | 46% | – | 11% |
| Virginia Commonwealth University [68] | August 18–28, 2025 | 804 (A) | ± 4.1% | 41% | 47% | – | 12% |
| SoCal Strategies (R) [69] [D] | August 31 – September 1, 2025 | 700 (LV) | – | 41% | 46% | – | 12% |
| co/efficient (R) [70] | August 23–26, 2025 | 1,025 (LV) | ± 3.06% | 44% | 45% | – | 11% |
| Roanoke College [71] [72] | August 11–15, 2025 | 702 (LV) | ± 4.3% | 38% | 41% | – | 21% |
| Wick Insights [73] | July 9–11, 2025 | 1,000 (LV) | ± 3.0% | 41% | 48% | – | 11% |
| American Directions Research Group/AARP [74] | June 25 – July 8, 2025 | 1,001 (LV) | ± 3.1% | 36% | 53% | – | 11% |
| Virginia Commonwealth University [75] | June 19 – July 3, 2025 | 764 (RV) | ± 4.2% | 37% | 46% | 3% [f] | 13% |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Jason Miyares (incumbent) | |||
| Democratic | Jay Jones | |||
| Write-in | ||||
| Total votes | ||||
Partisan clients
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Official campaign websites