Washington Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York said that Democrats won’t let go of Virginia Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones, following the Virginia gubernatorial debate last week between Former Virginia Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
“The election is three-and-a-half weeks away, Democrats are not going to let Jay Jones go,” York said on Fox News’s America Reports. “If there was any opportunity that Abigail Spanberger was going to take to say, ‘No, I do not support him; he should not be the attorney general of Virginia, it was [during the debate.”
During Thursday’s debate, Spanberger repeatedly refused to answer any questions about Jones, even blatantly ignoring Earle-Sears when she urged Spanberger to condemn the texts.
Jones has been the center of controversy in recent weeks after texts from three years ago surfaced in which Jones fantasized about shooting then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children.
York said that Democrats might think they can win the election without commenting on Jones because Spanberger is leading in both Republican and Democratic polling.
“She’s up, and it’s possible that Democrats think they can just get across the line even with their Jay Jones problem and be all right,” York said.
CORPORATE DONORS STAND BY VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE JAY JONES
Fox News anchor John Roberts played a clip of Spanberger ignoring Earle-Sears‘s calls to condemn Jones’s text messages and questioning why Spanberger has refused to do so.
“That was a terrible moment you just pointed out,” York said about the clip. “In moments in debates, it can be really, really big. We’ve seen them in Virginia and elsewhere, and just one moment like that just seems to turn a race around.”
