CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The latest poll for Virginia’s governor’s race has Democrat Abigail Spanberger leading Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by 10 points, with ticket-mates Ghazala Hashmi and Jay Jones also ahead, but it comes with a major caveat.

The polling was undertaken before news broke of Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones’s violent text message scandal.

“This poll was taken fully before the recent coverage of text messages by Jones in 2022, so there could be some movement because of that,” said Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director at Christopher Newport University’s Wasson Center.

According to the Wasson Center poll, Jones’s has just a 6-point lead over Miyares, 49-43%, making him the most vulnerable of the three Democrats seeking statewide office. Hashmi leads Republican John Reid in the lieutenant governor’s race by nine points, 48-39%.

The telephone polling of 805 registered likely voters by Christopher Newport University’s Wasson Center was conducted from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, Wednesday.

News broke Thursday that Jones avoided jailtime after a 2022 speeding conviction for driving 116 miles-per-hour on Interstate 64. Then, over the weekend, it was reported that Jones had sent violent text messages to a House of Delegates colleague in 2022, suggesting he’d like to see House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his family become the victims of gun violence.

Those texts have prompted Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee for governor, and other prominent GOP leaders to call for Jones to drop out of the race.

So far, Spanberger and Hashmi have released statements condemning Jones’s text messages and Jones released his own statement accepting responsibility for his words.

Monday, Jones’s opponent, incumbent attorney Jason Miyares, released a pair of digital ads calling out the two scandals.

“Jay Jones isn’t just soft-on-crime. Jay Jones is reckless, callous, and completely unfit to serve as Virginia’s top law enforcement officer,” said Miyares’s press secretary, Alex Cofield, in a statement. “Every Virginian knows Jay Jones has crossed a line and cannot be trusted to stand with victims and uphold the law neutrally and fairly. This is not someone who should be anywhere near the Attorney General’s Office.”

Still, Bromley-Trujillo doesn’t believe the situation will have a major negative impact on Spanberger’s race, and said that, if Spanberger’s lead remains in double digits, her strength could be enough to carry Jones through the scandal.

“I would not expect it to pull Spanberger down,” she said. “But there’s potential for it to pull Jones down.”

Earle-Sears’s campaign has been hindered, Bromley-Trujillo said, by President Trump’s high unfavorable marks in the Commonwealth and the fact that one of her main issues she has focused on – transgender issues – has not moved the needle with Virginia voters.

Just 3% of people polled listed that as their top issue this election cycle. Even within the Republican party, only 6% of respondents flagged transgender issues as most important to them.

“This remains a tough hill to climb for Earle-Sears,” Bromley-Trujillo said, noting that Spanberger has consistently received over 50% of support across the polling.

The Wasson Center will publish one final pre-election poll later this month.