Democrat Jay Jones, Virginia's attorney general-elect, won his race earlier this month despite facing a scandal involving years-old violent text messages that threatened to upend his candidacy in the final weeks of the contest.
Benefiting from a strong political environment for the party and a decisive win from the Democrat at the top of the ticket, Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, Jones managed to defeat incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares by more than 6 points.
Now, as he turns his attention to taking office in the coming weeks, Jones is still shaking off the after-effects of the controversy. Critics continue to question how he can serve as Virginia's top law enforcement officer when he sent violent text messages about a top Republican in the state and his family.
While many of Jones' allies argue his victory shows voters have forgiven him, others suggest he still has work to do to win the trust of the state's residents and officials.
"There is no doubt it was a cloud over his election. It will be discussed around his inauguration and when he gets started," said one Democratic strategist with experience in Virginia politics and campaigns. "But scandals have short lifespans in politics."
"Jay Jones is always gonna have to be mindful of this in his history," added the strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about Jones. "But he doesn't have to be limited by it."
Virginia's race for attorney general, typically a lower-profile, off-year contest, was thrust into the national spotlight in October after texts from 2022 surfaced in which Jones suggested that one of the top legislative Republicans in the state be shot in the head.
In the texts, Jones suggested that Republican Todd Gilbert, then Virginia's House speaker, deserved "two bullets to the head." "Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot," Jones wrote in the preceding message. Another text from Jones discussed violence against Gilbert’s children.
The development immediately upended the race -- and further inflamed already raw emotions around political violence -- triggering criticism from members of both parties.
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, demanded that Jones drop out of the race. Democrats, including Spanberger, aggressively condemned Jones, but did not call on him to end his campaign one month out from the election.
Jones repeatedly apologized for the texts, saying at various moments that he was "embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry." Jones, who in the race’s final stretch also dealt with questions around a 2022 reckless driving conviction, didn’t mention the texts in his speech on election night.
Despite his victory, the texts weighed on the minds of voters in his race. More than 4 in 10 voters in the attorney general contest said the texts disqualified Jones for the job, according to the NBC News Exit Poll. Of those voters, 90% voted for Miyares, while only 9% voted for Jones. Of the 37% of voters who said the texts were "concerning but not disqualifying or not a reason for concern," 88% voted for Jones, while 12% voted for Miyares.
Jones has generally kept a low profile since the election as he makes his first moves ahead of taking office.
He selected former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam to co-chair his transition effort. Northam’s own time in office was upended by a personal scandal involving his appearance in a racially offensive photo that appeared in his medical school yearbook. The photo showed one person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan robe. Amid pressure from prominent lawmakers to resign, Northam declined to step down and worked aggressively to regain the trust and support of his Democratic and Black colleagues.
Lawmakers and strategists from both parties said Northam’s presence on Jones’ transition team would help guide the attorney general-elect through any remaining pitfalls stemming from his texting scandal.
"I think that he can certainly offer some perspective to AG-elect Jones from what happened to him back in 2019, and I'm sure that AG-elect Jones can benefit from his counsel," said Democratic state Sen. Mamie Locke, a close confidant and longtime friend of Jones'.
"It's no coincidence," added Zack Roday, a Virginia-based Republican strategist.
Meanwhile, Jones has met privately with Spanberger in the weeks since their victories to help smooth over any tensions that might have emerged during the closing stretch of the race, when both campaigns were forced to confront the texting fallout on a near daily basis.
In their meeting, the two discussed the future of the state and how to work together on public safety, a source familiar with the Spanberger transition effort told NBC News. The source called the meeting "productive."
In a statement to NBC News, Jones said he was "honored that Virginians have elected me to be their next Attorney General" and that "my campaign was rooted in protecting Virginians."
He added he was "proud of the experienced and diverse transition team I've brought together to carry that mission forward," and that "right now I am focused on working with the transition team to build an office that will deliver for Virginians on day one."
Virginia Democrats largely say that Jones has repented sufficiently for the texting transgressions -- and that his comfortable margin of victory was evidence that voters had weighed the situation and moved on.
"If there is any repairing to be done, he would do that in the job that he does as attorney general," Locke said. "The only thing that he can do at this point is to demonstrate through the job that he does that he's the right person for this job, that he was the right person to have been selected for this job," she added. "He has apologized for what he said, what he did and said three years ago. So how many more times does he have to say that?"
A spokesperson for state House Speaker Don Scott, a Democrat, told NBC News that Scott "has known Attorney General-Elect Jay Jones for years, and he has complete confidence in his leadership."
"Jay won by more than six points, outperforming every expectation, because Virginians trust him to fight for their best interests on the economy, public safety, and protecting their rights," added Gianni Snidle, the Scott spokesperson, in a statement.
But Republicans remain adamant that the scandal -- which played out amid a broader conversation on political violence that was reignited by the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk -- remains wholly disqualifying.
"He's a joke. He's going to be seen as a joke for a while if he doesn't do the work to genuinely apologize," said Roday. "And he's a huge vulnerability for the Spanberger administration at its start."
Outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin said at a press conference following Jones' and Spanberger's victories that he remained "incredibly concerned about the attorney general-elect's ability to do the job based on the texts that he sent," calling them "abhorrent."
"I think that they once again reiterate that you can't come into this job if you are espousing death on a political enemy, the death of children and the death of law enforcement," Youngkin said. "And I believe, just as I've always believed, that that disqualifies him for the job."
"My position has not changed: that there is absolutely no excuse for what he wrote, none," Youngkin added.
A Youngkin spokesperson, asked about Jones, referred only to those comments. Miyares, whom Jones defeated, declined to comment.
Roday, however, said there was still a clear path to success for Jones.
"There has to be some acknowledgement from him of 'Don't judge me by my worst hour, judge me on my tenure,'" he said. "He's going to have to work pretty darn hard behind the scenes."