Less than a month ago, Republican Jason Miyares seemed assured of reelection as attorney general.
With some mean-spirited texts of Democrat opponent Jay Jones resurfacing, the resulting public outrage seemed to suggest that Miyares was headed to victory—no matter how his ticketmates for governor and lieutenant governor did.
But it was not to be.
Despite the texts suggesting he would like to see former state House Speaker Todd Gilbert shot more than he’d rather see Hitler or Cambodian despot Pol Pot shot, despite calls for his removal from the Old Dominion’s statewide ballot (out of the question at this late date in the election year), former State Delegate Jones emerged triumphant over Miyares.
The premier reason most often cited by experts on Virginia politics was the big (57% to 43%) election of Democrat Abigail Spanberger as governor.
“Spanberger’s coattails got him across the finish line,” Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University (Va.), told Newsmax. “The size of this landslide was just too much for a down-ticket Republican to overcome.”
Rozell’s view was seconded by Henry Olsen, Senior Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Public Policy, who replied to a question about how Miyares lost and Jones won.
“Spanberger’s skirttails,” he said. “Democrats are also gaining 14 delegate seats, which means that the next House of Delegates will be 65 Democrat seats to 35 for Republicans.”
There were other factors in Jones’ surviving scandal and emerging triumphantly Tuesday.
When his bizarre texts about Gilbert surfaced (Gilbert “deserved bullets to the head”…“Three people, two bullets Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot.”) in mid-October, early voting was well underway.
A record 1.1 million Virginians voted early or absentee, and many of them voted before the texting scandal broke.
Although ticketmate Spanberger sharply denounced Jones’ text, neither she nor any major Democrats called for him to withdraw from the race.
Moreover, the Democratic Attorneys General Association pumped in more than $1 million into the Jones coffers after the controversial texts became public.
For his part, Miyares, 49, is sure to remain a popular fixture among state Republicans, and already there is talk that the son of Cuban refugees will run against Democrat Sen. Mark Warner next year.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Click Here Now.
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