Virginia AG race tightens after Jones texting scandal, poll finds, but Spanberger still has wide lead

Abigail Spanberger remains the heavy favorite in Virginia’s race for governor, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School poll, even as the scandal engulfing fellow Democrat Jay Jones’ attorney general campaign has turned his race into a dead heat.

Spanberger continues to hold a 12-point lead over her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, with 54 percent of voters saying they prefer the former three-term House lawmaker. It’s the same margin she led by in a September poll, which came just days before it was reported that Jones had texted a former colleague fantasizing about shooting a Republican lawmaker in the head with two bullets.

With the election less than two weeks away, Virginia Republicans up and down the ballot have sought to hold the entire Democratic ticket to account for the scandal. Earle-Sears repeatedly called on Spanberger to urge Jones to step down during a debate Oct. 9.

“What would it take? Him pulling the trigger?” she asked. “Is that what would do it, and then you would say he needs to get out of the race, Abigail?”

But the scandal doesn’t seem to be affecting Spanberger — or lieutenant governor nominee Ghazala Hashmi, who leads Republican John Reid by seven points in the poll, up from 4 points in September.

The attorney general slot remains Republicans’ best chance at victory in November. Jones has seen a six-point lead over current Attorney General Jason Miyares evaporate since September, with both candidates now tied at 46 percent apiece.

The Washington Post-Schar School poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 16-20, with a random sample of 927 likely voters. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.