Free Republic

One of the many problems facing Jay Jones' campaign this month has been a story about reckless driving. Back in 2022 Jones went driving on the I-64 freeway east of Richmond, VA and got pulled over for speeding. The speed limit on this stretch of freeway is 70 mph. Jones was caught driving 116 mph, which works out to 46 mph over the limit. Any speed more than 20 mph over the limit is automatically classified as reckless driving and usually results in more than a fine. But not for Jay Jones. He got a sweetheart deal from the court.If...

"The stakes couldn't be higher," Jay Jones, the Virginia Democrat running for state attorney general, said Monday in an X post. It was an ironic post, coming 10 days after National Review reported numerous violent text messages Jones sent to a colleague in the legislature about a Republican lawmaker. Jones fantasized about urinating on the graves of political opponents as well as shooting then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert with "two bullets to the head." He also texted that he hoped Gilbert's wife, Jennifer, would one day hold one of her children as they died. He followed that post with the...

Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears was defiant Monday after her latest brush with racism while she campaigns for governor on the GOP line, after a fan at a James Madison football game yelled at her to "go back" to a Black-majority country she does not hail from. The incident occurred Saturday during JMU’s 63-27 blowout win over Old Dominion in Harrisonburg. It’s the latest episode in which Earle-Sears has been targeted with racist invective; a protester recently confronted her with a sign suggesting she use a segregated water fountain. "I thought Democrats were supposed to love everyone -- and just...

Former President Obama will campaign with Democratic Virginia gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger in Norfolk, Va., on Nov. 1, according to a Tuesday announcement from Spanberger’s campaign.Obama last campaigned in Hampton Roads in 2012. His upcoming campaign stop with Spanberger will mark the first campaign visit of any Democratic president to the area in over 10 years. The announcement comes less than a week after Obama cut two ads urging Virginia voters to back Spanberger in next month’s governor’s race.

Virginia Republicans scored a monumental victory in 2021. After 12 years of sustained statewide losses, the party emerged from the wilderness and swept the three statewide races that year, led by outsider Glenn Youngkin, who became the commonwealth’s first Republican governor since Bob McDonnell left office in 2014.Virginia’s gubernatorial elections are unique in American politics in that no other state makes its governor a lame duck the moment he is sworn in, as term limits prohibit consecutive terms. No Virginia governor has ever run for reelection as an incumbent, although two governors have succeeded in winning nonconsecutive terms.The commonwealth’s proximity...

Jackie Norris, the chairwoman of the Des Moines Public School Board who once served as chief of staff to Michelle Obama, has pulled out of the race for Iowa's open U.S. Senate seat as recommended by her Republican opponent, Rep. Ashley Hinson. Hinson stressed earlier this month that Norris, a champion of DEI, had "lost all shreds of credibility" over the role she played in the hiring of the Des Moines district's former superintendent, a criminal illegal alien who was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sept 26. Ian Andre Roberts, a native of Guyana, has a lengthy...

Campaign ads for Democrats Mikie Sherrill, top, and Abigail Spanberger, link their Republican opponents to President Trump.Credit...From top: Greater Garden State, Spanberger for VA GovernorIn New Jersey, Virginia and beyond, voters have been inundated with ads linking Republican candidates to the president. Some Democratic strategists see a missed opportunity to forge a more positive message.Campaign ads for Democrats Mikie Sherrill, top, and Abigail Spanberger, link their Republican opponents to President Trump.Credit...From top: Greater Garden State, Spanberger for VA GovernorIn New Jersey, the most expensive attack ad in the governor’s race so far this fall accuses the Republican nominee, Jack Ciattarelli,...

Jay Jones gave speech condemning Ralph Northam’s blackface controvery, then campaigned with him. Democratic Virginia attorney general hopeful Jay Jones gave an impassioned speech on race in 2019 which criticized then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam over wearing blackface — and then Jones embraced and campaigned with the disgraced Democratic governor during his unsuccessful bid to be attorney general in 2021 and again during his current bid in 2025.The yearbook photo depicting two people, one dressed up in Ku Klux Klan robes and the other in blackface, appeared on Northam’s 1984 yearbook page at Eastern Virginia Medical School and came to...

… “I don’t have a lot of faith in the Democrats right now,” Alex, a construction worker who traveled to Washington from northern Virginia on Saturday and declined to provide his last name, told NBC News. “They don’t have — they don’t seem to have a lot of spine or a single message. They’re just too disorganized to put up a good fight against this bulls---.” “It pains me to say it, but Trump’s goons are f-----g organized compared to the Dems right now,” he added. Clark Furey, 40, who lives in Washington, called on elected Democrats to “throw some...

From crime and energy to national security, Spanberger was often to the Left of AOC.Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat candidate seeking to be the next governor of Virginia, has pitched herself as a moderate who opposes “extremism” in an attempt to win the purple state. When asked about basic policy positions, she’s dissembled and deflected, refusing to answer or giving what her opponent has called a “word salad.”But actions speak louder than words, and the former congresswoman has plenty of actions on record. How did she actually vote when taking a stance was part of the job? According to a new...

Most Virginians have “accepted the apology” of state attorney general nominee Jay Jones for his disturbing, violent threats about a Republican legislator, a top Democrat is saying. However, recent polling and betting odds cast doubt on that claim. Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin said in an interview published Friday in Politico that Jones’s violent texts in 2022 about killing Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert were “reckless and unacceptable.” However, he also said that Virginia voters were forgiving. “I believe that most Virginians have accepted that apology and that they’ll elect Jay Jones as the next attorney general,” Martin...

President Trump on Wednesday showed off a model of what may be his next Washington, D.C., development project, an arch that resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and is being referred to informally as the "Arc de Trump." The president showed off a model of the arch at a White House dinner Wednesday night for a group of wealthy donors who are funding his White House ballroom project. Mockups he displayed bore the caption "Independence Arch." "It's going to be really beautiful. I think it's going to be fantastic," Trump said, as he held a model of the arch....

Former President Barack Obama endorsed former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia’s governor race, releasing a pair of ads attacking Republicans. The contest between Spanberger, a former CIA officer, and current Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is one of only two governor races in the U.S. this November. The contests are viewed as political bellwethers ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. "Virginia's elections are some of the most important in the country this year. We know Republicans will keep attacking abortion rights and the rights of women. That’s why having the right governor matters, and I’m proud to endorse Abigail...

Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears swiftly condemned those tied to a Young Republicans group chat scandal—and now she's calling on her opponent, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, to do the same with regard to her own running mate, attorney general nominee Jay Jones. In a press release issued Wednesday, the Democratic Party of Virginia said Earle-Sears “must call on participants of a leaked Young Republicans chat that used racist language to step down from their roles joining Virginia Young Republican Thomas Turner”—something the lieutenant governor had no problem doing. “Easy,” she replied, “they absolutely must step down.”Earle-Sears then said it was...

After Virginia’s Republican candidate for governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, left her Democratic opponent, Abigail Spanberger, on the ropes in a debate last week, Sears came out with a devastating ad: A full minute-long clip from the debate of Spanberger staring ahead silently, unwilling to answer the moderator’s question about whether she endorses attorney general candidate Jay Jones despite his homicidal comments against Republicans. “We’re talking about murder … have you nothing to say about that?” Sears prodded. ... So even as Sears rolled out ad after ad that criticized Spanberger by showing her responses when asked about policy positions, the most...

A State Department contractor stole thousands of pages of “TOP SECRET” classified documents and met with Beijing officials. Ashley Tellis, an expert on India and South Asian affairs, removed the top secret documents from secure locations and met with Chinese officials. The classified documents were located in Tellis’s Virginia home during a raid. “On Sept. 25, he allegedly printed U.S. Air Force documents concerning military aircraft capabilities. Federal prosecutors allege that he met with Chinese government officials multiple times over the past several years,” Fox News reported. Prosecutors said in September 2022 that Tellis brought a manila envelope with him...

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger will be joined by Pete Buttigieg in Charlottesville for an upcoming rally.According to Spanberger’s website, it urges individuals to join them as, “we Get Out the Vote in the last 2 weeks before Election Day!”Buttigieg shared via social media that he is “looking forward to hitting the campaign trail next week with my friend & Virginia’s next governor, Abigail Spanberger.”The rally will be held Tuesday, Oct. 21, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. For details on where the event will be held, visit the website.Spanberger is currently the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in...

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger’s refusal to affirm life-saving care for babies born alive after failed abortions has drawn sharp condemnation from pro-life advocates, who accuse her of endorsing unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy and undermining parental rights in the process. During Thursday’s debate, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears pressed Spanberger on whether a baby born alive after an abortion should receive appropriate medical treatment. Spanberger remained silent, declining to answer the pointed question. The moment, captured on video, has fueled accusations that Spanberger backs a proposed constitutional amendment in Virginia that would enshrine unlimited abortions up to birth, block future protective...

The state of Virginia has been in the news for the last several years for issues that are not very complimentary. Fairfax County, which is the largest school district in the state and the ninth largest in the country, is consumed by wokeness. Hardly a week goes by that another scandal, often times involving some LGBTQ issue doesn’t arise.Now, Virginia finds itself on the brink of choosing a new Governor, and the two candidates are on opposite ends of the relatability scale. That fact could not have been more clearly highlighted than at their debate last week.***Last week’s debate was...

The northern Virginia transgender bathroom saga notched another controversy Friday with the release of emails from Arlington County, Virginia, schools regarding correspondence board members received from serial sex offender Richard Kenneth Cox.Cox, 58, was thrust into the national spotlight after Virginia's Fairfax County Democratic prosecutor Steve Descano declined to prosecute Cox for charges of perversion in women’s locker rooms while neighboring Arlington County, Virginia, arrested him in 2024 on similar offenses which he has faced in court in October.Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, lambasted news that Cox — who identified himself as a transgender woman named "Riki"...