Democrat Jay Jones will win the Virginia attorney general's race, CBS News projects, surviving a scandal that arose late in the race over violent text messages he had written in 2022 about a Republican legislator.

Jones defeated GOP incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who had tried to seize on the resurfaced text messages to portray him as unfit for the office. But Miyares, who was backed by President Trump, was confronted by the headwinds of the federal shutdown and the president's government cuts in a state with high numbers of government workers — over 147,000 — according to Office of Personnel Management data .

In his sole debate against Miyares , Jones apologized multiple times for the texts, but maintained Miyares' connections to Mr. Trump were worse.

Jones re

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