Will Democrat Depravity Cost Them Virginia and New Jersey?

A deepening scandal involving a statewide candidate in Virginia and mounting voter frustration with far-left policies in New Jersey have suddenly made the highest-profile races of 2025 more competitive in the final weeks of the campaign season. While the outcomes of those contests are still uncertain, it is now evident that Democrat depravity has jeopardized what initially appeared to be a promising electoral landscape for the liberal party this November.

Most political pundits have assigned a great deal of importance to the 2025 gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey based on the assumption that these races will tell us something useful about the potential outcome of next year’s midterm elections. From a more pragmatic standpoint, these two states have elected a combined total of only three Republican governors during the last 25 years, so Democrat wins in the Old Dominion and the Garden State would signal no shift in the political winds.

A Republican victory in Virginia or New Jersey, however, could mean the Democrats are headed for stormy seas in the 2026 midterms.

Veteran political analyst Stuart Rothenberg opined in Roll Call on October 6 that Democrat gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger was all but certain to defeat Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia unless the former was derailed by a “dramatic black swan” development. Just such an event occurred days later when it came to light that one of Spanberger’s partners on the Democrat ticket, Attorney General nominee Jay Jones, had fantasized about murdering a former Republican colleague and wished death on his children in a series of texts.

Jones sent the repulsive texts in August 2022 after leaving the funeral of Democrat delegate Joe Johnson, Jr. He was inexplicably enraged when then-Republican Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates Todd Gilbert honored Johnson’s memory with an eloquent eulogy. Several other Republicans also offered kind words about Johnson. Jones vented his rage by sending a number of increasingly alarming texts to Republican Delegate Carrie Coyner in which he fantasized about desecrating the graves of Republicans if they predeceased him. Jones then went on to speculate about assassinating Gilbert.

Subsequent texts show Jones – despite pleas from Coyner to stop – saying that he hoped Gilbert’s children would die in their mother’s arms because “only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”

Jones was already mired in a scandal involving a charge for reckless driving after he was clocked going 116 mph on a Virginia freeway. To avoid jail time, Jones agreed to do 1,000 hours of community service – and then reported performing 500 hours of that service in a single year to his own political action committee, raising serious ethical concerns. After the text scandal broke, a Republican lawmaker also stated that Jones told her over the phone that it would be a good thing if more police officers were killed since they would be able to shoot fewer civilians.

Understandably, the revelation that the Democrat candidate for Virginia’s chief law enforcement officer is utterly depraved prompted widespread outrage and numerous calls for him to drop out of the race. Republicans, including President Trump, Vice President Vance, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and many others have also called on him to withdraw.

In addition, the Virginia Fraternal Order of Police has demanded that Jones exit the race. Likewise, the Virginia Law Enforcement Sheriffs’ Association has called on Jones to withdraw. But Spanberger has been conspicuously absent from these demands for Jones to drop out.

Spanberger was given multiple chances to do the right thing and call on Jones to withdraw by the moderators of last Thursday’s gubernatorial debate with Earle-Sears, yet she studiously avoided the opportunity to do so. Even when Earle-Sears directly asked her why she won’t come forward and say Jones should withdraw, Spanberger merely smirked and remained silent.

Spanberger behaved as if Earle-Sears was being uppity for asking such a question. This is classic AWFUL (Affluent White Female Urban Leftist) behavior. This is certainly one of the reasons Spanberger’s early lead in the reputable polls has decreased from double digits to as few as four or three points in the most recent Cygnal and Trafalgar polls, respectively.

A similar dynamic is emerging in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, where Democrat candidate Mikie Sherrill has watched her lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli shrink from double digits a few months ago to a tie in the latest Emerson College poll.

Sherrill has attempted to break out by tying her opponent to Trump, which turned out to be a blunder. The Emerson poll indicates that the President enjoys a higher approval rating in New Jersey than its current Democrat governor, Phil Murphy. This has Sherrill so panicked that she literally accused Ciattarelli of mass murder during a debate held last Wednesday evening:

“My opponent likes to talk a lot about being a businessman, but I think what New Jersey doesn’t know as much about his business, how he made his millions, by working with some of the worst offenders and saying that opioids were safe, putting out propaganda, publishing their propaganda, while tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died. And as if that wasn’t enough, then he was paid to develop an app so that people who were addicted could more easily get access to opioids. And so, as he made millions, as these opioid companies made billions, tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died.”

Even by famously low Democrat standards, that was a vile charge to level during a public debate. Ciattarelli immediately said it was a lie and, according to a report in The Hill, his campaign announced the next morning that he will file a lawsuit against Sherrill for defamation pursuant to her accusations: “Last night, faced with continued questions about her refusal to release disciplinary records that would reveal her true role in the Naval Academy cheating scandal, and pressed about her unusually abbreviated tenure as a federal prosecutor, Mikie Sherrill cracked.”

In 2021, Ciattarelli came within 3.5 points of defeating incumbent governor Phil Murphy. Unless Sherrill has the receipts to back up her irresponsible claims, it isn’t likely that the Democrat-weary voters of New Jersey will vote for her based on this kind of slander. According to the Emerson poll noted above, “Economic concerns continue to top New Jersey voters’ concerns: 51% think the economy is the top issue facing the state.” And Sherrill has no answer for how her administration will be any different than the tax-and-spend excess that has burdened the wallets of New Jersey families under unified Democrat rule.

Moreover, Ciattarelli crushes Sherrill (52-36) among voters over 50 – and these folks constitute about two-thirds of likely voters in New Jersey.

This brings us back to the political winds that buffet Virginia and New Jersey. In the Old Dominion, Abigail Spanberger refuses to call for the exit of depraved Democrat Attorney General candidate Jay Jones. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill is losing so much momentum to her Republican opponent among the people who actually vote that she has desperately resorted to slander.

Sherrill or Spanberger may well pull out a victory in one or both of these races. But that shouldn’t erase the obvious fact that Democrats are heading for heavy weather in 2026.

David Catron is a Senior Editor at the American Spectator. His writing has also appeared in PJ Media, the American Thinker, the Providence Journal, the Catholic Exchange and a variety of other publications.