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June 24th Len’s Political Note #734 Jay Jones Virginia Attorney General
2025 General Election
Virginia Democrats nominated a candidate for Attorney General on June 17. It was a close race, but we knew who the nominee was when the votes were counted, which is more that you could say about the Democrat’s nomination for Lt. Governor. Three Lt. Governor candidates were within a point of each other. They were so close the race was not called when the officials and the observers went home to bed or off somewhere to drink.
The following morning State Senator Gazala Hashmi announced that she had won. The second and third place finishers have conceded. Virginia’s three statewide candidates, Abigail Spanberger, Gazala Hashmi, and Jay Jones joined together urging voters to support the team.
Democratic primary voters nominated former House Delegate Jerauld “Jay” Jones for Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, defeating County Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor 51-49, a margin of 9,586 votes. A few uncounted votes could change the actual number, but the result will not change.
Jay Jones had been elected a Delegate to Virginia’s House of Delegates in 2017. House of Delegates District 89 was then so overwhelmingly Democratic, the Republicans did not field a candidate. When Jay Jones won the primary, he won election to a seat his father had held for fourteen years.
Jay Jones’ family has history in Virginia. While Henry Louis Gates would undoubtedly uncover, if he were asked, the family’s pre- and post- Civil War roots, for Jay Jones’ place in Virginia politics we can back to his grandparents. His father’s father was Hilary Jones, a civil rights leader in Norfolk and an attorney. His father’s mother, Corrine Jones, taught in a segregated school. Jay Jones’ mother’s parents were professors at Historically Black Universities – Charles Simmons at Norfolk State University and Margaret Simmons at Hampton University.
Jay Jones’ parents were no slouches. His dad, who had been part of the integration effort in Virginia as a child went on to Princeton and the Washington and Lee Law School. He represented the 89th from 1988 to 2002. Later, he became a judge for the Norfolk Circuit Court. His mom, Lyn Simmons, was a prosecutor before becoming a juvenile court judge.
Jay Jones attended the Norfolk Collegiate School, graduating in 2006. From there he went to the College of William and Mary for his BA and to the University of Virginia for his law degree. Before going to law school, he spent two years in New York City at Goldman Sachs. Jay Jones is married to Mavis Baah, the daughter of Janna Baah, a refugee from Kazakhstan and Anthony Baah, who immigrated from Accra, Ghana with his family as a child.
Since leaving the House of Delegates before redistricting, Jay Jones ran unsuccessfully in a primary against Mark Herring, the incumbent Democratic Attorney General, who then lost in the general election. In his 2021 run, outgoing term-limited Governor Ralph Northam endorsed Jay Jones, noting that Jay Jones had “stood with [him] every step of the way in our journey to make Virginia a more just and equitable place to be.”
Governor Northam’s tenure marked a Virginia Civil Rights transition. Although Northam denied that a photo that surfaced was not him in blackface, he acknowledged that, at a different time, dressed as rapper, he had appeared in blackface. Jay Jones did not condemn Northam. Instead, he condemned racism and explained the excruciating pain and suffering of people of color caused by racism.
Jay Jones said he was the son and grandson of men and women “who spent the entirety of their lives attempting to push back against the horrors of racism.” To a standing ovation, he explained that “For many of us in this chamber, and millions of people across this country, the events that have gripped Virginia aren’t an aberration, an abstraction, or an anachronism. They aren’t a unit in a history book.”
2021 was a Republican year in Virginia. Glenn Youngkin was elected governor, defeating former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe. Jason Miyares, son of a Cuban refugee, defeated the incumbent Mark Herring for Attorney General. When he was in the House of Delegates, Miyares had sought to be a moderate Republican. He supported an increase in the minimum wage, but opposed giving localities the authority to take down Confederate monuments on public property.
As Attorney General, Miyares continued to seek a kind of middle ground. When he took office, he fired 30 of his predecessor’s employees, but hired a Democrat to lead the unit that examined public safety issues. He chose to withdraw his predecessor’s effort to overturn Mississippi’s abortion ban while not joining other Republican Attorneys Generals in an effort to ban the abortion medication mifepristone. Miyares issued a non-binding, advisory opinion saying that universities could not require students to have received a Covid vaccination. He settled a case with a Virginia town regarding discriminatory police behavior and announced that “excessive use of force and violations of constitutional liberties will not be tolerated in Virginia.”
Jay Jones does not sound like a politician seeking the middle ground. He promises to stand up to “Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s dangerous agenda.” He tells us about his past work as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, where he was a member of the Office of Consumer Protection. He tells us he “took on the gun lobby to keep families safe from violent crime, sued corporate special interests to prevent higher grocery prices, and went after big banks and slumlords preying on consumers.” He adds that, in the House of Delegates, he “protected abortion rights, expanded Medicaid, and gave teachers annual pay raises…. he championed energy and environmental policies that lowered Virginians’ energy bills and protected our air, water, and land. [He] also wrote legislation … establishing a missing persons alert for adults in the Commonwealth…[that] … is now used nationwide.”
Jay Jones’ believes that holding corporate rule breakers accountable fosters growth and innovation, that part of ensuring a fair justice system for all is keeping Virginians safe from crime, that protecting civil and constitutional and abortion rights is crucial to the lives of Virginians.
Help Jay Jones win election as Attorney General. DONATE.
Attorneys General are crucial in every state. Although there is a matching 2025 Gubernatorial election in New Jersey, there is no Attorney General race. In New Jersey, the Governor appoints the Attorney General.
Here are a few 2026 Attorney General races to pay attention to:
Arizona. The incumbent Democratic Attorney General, Kris Mayes won election in 2022 by 280 votes. Those were enough votes to allow her to take the lead as Arizona’s chief legal officer. DONATE. See Len’s Political Note #714
Florida. Democrats are planning to make Florida competitive again. The Democratic Attorney General candidate is State Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez. The son of a Cuban refugee, a graduate of Brown and Harvard Law School, and an Assembly member who defeated a Republican and focused on supporting education, Jose Javier Rodriguez could win with help. DONATE. He will be opposing an appointed incumbent, James UIhmeier.
Minnesota. Keith Ellison is a progressive and the nation’s highest ranking Muslim. He is running for his third term after winning a second term by less than a point. Help him remain as Minnesota’s Attorney General. DONATE.
Nevada. This is an open seat. Nevada’s Attorney General, Aaron Ford, is running for Governor, attempting to flip that seat back to the Democrats. State Treasurer Zach Conine ended state investment in firearms manufacturers after a school shooting in Nevada. Help him keep the Attorney General’s office Democratic. DONATE
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