Former President Barack Hussein Obama drew sharp criticism after attending a Hampton Roads, Virginia, rally on November 1, 2025, to support Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger and attorney general hopeful Jay Jones. The event, which also featured Jones, sparked backlash from state officials and critics who condemned the Democratic Party’s association with the candidate’s inflammatory rhetoric.
Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) denounced the rally as a “great representation of the far-left’s embrace of violence,” following revelations that Jones had sent text messages in 2022 fantasizing about murdering former Republican Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children. In one message, Jones wrote: “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler [sic], and Pol Pot [sic]. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.” He later told a colleague he wished to see Gilbert’s children murdered, stating, “Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
Critics, including Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, labeled Jones’s remarks “absolutely crazy” and claimed they contradicted Virginia’s values. Despite the controversy, neither Obama nor Spanberger addressed Jones’s statements during the rally, instead focusing their criticism on former President Donald J. Trump. Virginia House Speaker Don Scott Jr. (D) defended Jones, calling him “a good young man who made a huge error.”
The event intensified scrutiny of the Democratic Party’s endorsement of Jones, with opponents arguing that Obama’s presence lent credibility to figures promoting violent rhetoric.
