ROANOKE, VA – This interview was conducted in September 2025, prior to a controversy involving text messages sent by Democratic nominee Jay Jones in 2022. For Jones’s response to the controversy, click here.
The 2025 race for Virginia attorney general is drawing attention as voters look for leadership on issues from public safety to abortion access.
10 News anchor Abbie Coleman met with both candidates to explore their priorities, their plans, and how they would approach the top legal office in the Commonwealth.
She sat down one-on-one with Democratic candidate Jay Jones to discuss his vision for Virginia and why he believes he’s the right person for the job.
You can watch Republican incumbent Jason Miyares’ interview here.
Read the full transcript of Abbie’s interview with Jones below.
I want to start off by talking a little bit about your background, for people who may not know who you are. Tell me a little about your background and why you decided to jump into this attorney general race.
Well, I’m just the son and grandson of civil rights leaders from Norfolk, Virginia, people who taught me everything that I know about putting community first. My grandfather was the first Black person appointed to the school board in Norfolk, and later became the first Black member of the State Board of Education. My father, Jerrauld Jones, was one of a few people to serve in all three branches of government in Virginia. He also served in the House of Delegates. And I tried to pick up their legacy as a member of the House of Delegates. We did amazing things. We expanded Medicaid, raised teacher pay, increased the minimum wage. I’ve been an assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia, doing consumer protection, where we took on the gun lobby and put the largest ghost gun manufacturer, Polymer80, out of business because we want to keep our communities safe. I’ve been in the private sector for the last few years, advocating on behalf of organizations that are committed to voting rights and other civil rights and civil liberties. And so I think all of those things lend [themselves] to this moment where we need an attorney general who’s going to step up and put Virginia first to protect us.
What are your top priorities right now, and if you were elected, what are you getting started on on day one?
Well, we certainly want to put Virginia first. These last eight and a half months have been incredibly challenging with what’s coming out of Washington, and how that’s impacting us here in Virginia... The cuts to the federal workforce, the federal funding issues, the attacks on healthcare, that are decimating our little hospital systems across this commonwealth, and so we want to join those lawsuits that will put Virginia first and let us hang on to our resources, our livelihoods, and those foundational things that are really important to us. And we want to make sure that we attack this cost issue. Everywhere we go across Virginia, people are talking about rising costs, inflation, how these tariffs are hurting our regional economies. And so that’s why we offered our lower cost plan just a couple of weeks ago, because we are laser-focused on trying to alleviate these burdens that we see that are impacting Virginians from corner to corner.