Decency on the Ballot

Erick Erickson on Oct 10, 2025

In 2017, in a special Senate election in Alabama to replace Jeff Sessions, Alabama's electorate sent Democrat Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate after a series of disturbing allegations about Republican candidate Roy Moore. In 2022, Georgia voters elected every statewide Republican candidate for office except Herschel Walker, after a series of disturbing accounts of his prior behavior circulated. Now, the question is if Virginia has the same moral integrity.

In Virginia, statewide elections are in odd-numbered years. The state has not split tickets for statewide offices since 2005. This year, Democrats have poured money into the state to replace the term-limited Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin, fill the Lieutenant Governor's office and oust Jason Miyares, the Republican Attorney General. Democrats have been polling very well in the state. But suddenly, Jay Jones, the Democrats' Attorney General candidate, looks to be a drag on the ticket.

Several years ago, Jones, a former member of Virginia's legislature and the son of two prominent Virginians, got pulled over doing 116 mph on an interstate with a maximum speed limit of 70 mph. In lieu of jail, a judge sentenced Jones to 1,000 hours of community service.

Jones certified he had completed his community service with two charities. Only later did it turn out Jones had actually spent 500 hours of his community service time working on his own political action committee, raising money for himself and campaigning for himself. Under Virginia law, it is too late to do anything about it unless voters choose to hold Jones accountable.

After that story broke, a more disturbing story broke. Jones shared his private and candid thoughts in a text message with another member of the Virginia legislature. He said he wanted to put two bullets in the back of the head of the then-Virginia House of Delegates Speaker, Todd Gilbert. Given two bullets and confronted with Gilbert, Pol Pot and Hitler, Jones said he'd put two in the back of Gilbert's head every time.

Jones went on to say he hoped Gilbert's wife would have to watch their children die in her arms. He said that only knowing such personal tragedy would make Gilbert willing to change his political positions. What awful things had Gilbert done to deserve such vileness? He had said kind words at the funeral of a member of the Virginia legislature who was a Democrat.

For the crime of saying nice things about a dead man, Jones wanted to put two bullets in the back of the Speaker's head and kill his children, who, Jones said, were "little fascists." More particularly, Jones declared that the Speaker and his wife were evil and raising little fascists because Jones disagreed with Gilbert politically.

If both stories were not enough, the same member of the legislature who released Gilbert's text messages also says Gilbert wanted members of Virginia's police killed because only then might they rethink how they police. It is one thing to take extreme positions in public for attention, clicks or social media traffic, but these were Jones's private thoughts -- violent fantasies towards children, police and political opponents.

The real scandal is that Jones lied to a court about his community service and actually served his own political interests instead of doing community service. But after two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, the assassination of Charlie Kirk and other violence from the left, Jones' violent wishes are getting all the press.

In Alabama, the allegations against Roy Moore were related to indecent behavior with young women. Alabama's voters rejected him based on those allegations. In Georgia, Herschel Walker's behaviors were well-documented and violent, but came before he sought help for mental health. Even his ex-wife, against whom the violence had been committed, argued that the public should not hold it against Walker because he not only got treatment for his mental issues, but punishing him could discourage others from coming forward in the future and getting help. It did not matter; Georgia voters elected every other Republican in statewide office and rejected Walker. Now we will see if Virginia's voters have the same character as those in Alabama and Georgia.

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To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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