Democrat holds a healthy lead for Virginia governor, but one scandal could throw downballot races

Early data indicates Democrats are currently enjoying a lead in Virginia's gubernatorial race, but one notorious scandal might cost them the attorney general race.

Polling has consistently shown Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger with a comfortable advantage over her Republican challenger, Winsome Earle-Sears, who has served as Virginia's lieutenant governor since 2022. Spanberger is averaging 7.4 points ahead of Earle-Sears, according to RealClearPolling, with some polls even putting the Democrat at a double-digit lead.

'Do you really want to elect that person as a law enforcement officer in your state?'

However, this advantage has not translated to the Virginia attorney general race, where Democratic candidate Jay Jones has fallen behind Republican candidate Jason Miyares.

Miyares' newfound momentum came at the beginning of October after Jones' leaked texts revealed he was privately fantasizing about putting "two bullets" in the head of a political opponent and about the man's kids dying in the arms of their mother.

RELATED: Exclusive: Steve Scalise was shot by a radical leftist — now he reacts to Jay Jones' murderous fantasies

Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who himself survived a politically motivated shooting, warned that Jones' rhetoric revealed skewed judgment.

"Do you really want to elect that person as a law enforcement officer in your state?" Scalise asked in response to the texts. "Should other elected officials be accepting and condoning and endorsing that, or should they denounce it, which I did? Everybody should denounce it, and yet some won't for political reasons."

"I think it's a gut check for people's integrity," Scalise told Blaze News. "If you're willing to accept a call to violence because you're more worried about a political party advancing than you are worried about civility in this country, that's a real big concern for alarm."

RELATED: Earle-Sears' campaign bus bursts into flames days before election for Virginia governor

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

It's clear that extreme rhetoric is unpopular with Virginians. In the lieutenant governor's race, Republican candidate John Reid has hammered Democratic candidate Ghazala Hashmi's radical track record, including the time she boasted about teaching children books that were banned for containing explicit material.

"One of my concerns is violence. We seem to focus on sexually explicit material," Hashmi said in a video obtained by Blaze News. "I don't really care about that."

"We teach the books that other people try to ban," Hashmi said.

Even still, polling puts Reid and Hashmi within striking distance of each other. The latest polling shows Hashmi at a two-point advantage over Reid, although notably 7% of surveyed voters remain undecided.

"Ghazala Hashmi's words speak for themselves," Reid told Blaze News. "Any public official who says they 'don't really care' if children are exposed to sexually explicit material in schools is completely out of touch with Virginia parents."

"Parents deserve to know what's in their kids' classrooms — and when I'm lieutenant governor, they'll have a voice and a seat at the table."

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