After college, Jones spent two years in
New York City as an associate with
Goldman Sachs, where he focused on risk management and credit rating advisory, focusing on natural resources and technology companies. The Democratic incumbent,
Daun Hester, announced she would not run for reelection. and won the November 7, 2017 general election against
Libertarian Terry Hurst. He ran for reelection unopposed in the
2019 election cycle. Jones was appointed to the House Appropriations Committee at the beginning of his second term. In September 2019, Jones endorsed
Cory Booker in the
2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. In January 2022, Jones resigned from the Virginia House of Delegates following the announcement that he and his wife were expecting their first child in summer 2022. Fellow Democrat
Jackie Glass was elected to succeed him in a special election held on January 11, 2022.
Elections 2021 Jones was a candidate in the Democratic primary in the
2021 Virginia Attorney General election, where he faced incumbent
Mark Herring. He defeated Republican incumbent
Jason Miyares in the general election amidst a
wave election for the Democrats.
Violent messages and subsequent fallout In October 2025, Jones came under fire for an August 2022 text message conversation with his former Republican delegate colleague
Carrie Coyner, in which Jones made "threatening messages" and used "graphic and violent language" against the then–state house speaker
Todd Gilbert and his family. Jones, who was not in the legislature at the time, stated that if he had two bullets and could shoot Gilbert,
Adolf Hitler, or
Pol Pot, Gilbert "gets two bullets to the head". Jones acknowledged that he had talked about hoping Gilbert's children would die because "Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy", before describing Gilbert and his wife as "evil" and "breeding little fascists". The impetus for Jones's texts to Coyner was his anger at the eulogies Republican legislators had for former delegate
Joseph P. Johnson, a moderate Democrat, who had recently died, with Jones disparaging "Johnson's political centrism". Jones said of Republican legislators who gave tributes about Johnson that "If those guys die before me I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves" and said that it will "Send them out awash in something". and
Ghazala Hashmi in
Fairfax|284x284px The comments were made public by
National Review in October 2025 during Jones's campaign for attorney general, and received bipartisan condemnation, including by fellow Democratic nominees former representative
Abigail Spanberger and state senator
Ghazala Hashmi, though they did not call on him to drop out of the race. Numerous prominent Republicans, including president
Donald Trump, vice president
JD Vance, governor
Glenn Youngkin, and Republican gubernatorial nominee lieutenant governor
Winsome Earle-Sears have all requested for Jones to drop out of the election due to these messages. Jones has acknowledged that he sent these texts and apologized to Gilbert and his family. Jason Miyares publicly stated that he "does not accept his apology", stating that Jones "had a chance then to apologize", and that he "is sorry only after it made the news". After the story broke, Coyner said in an interview that Jones made charged comments during a phone conversation on
qualified immunity in 2020. Jones allegedly said "if a few police officers died, then maybe they would stop killing people". Jones denied making the comment. Most undecided voters, however, ended up supporting Jones, with most undecided voters leaning towards Jones as shown in the final polls. Jones's strong performance with undecided voters is likely an example of
social-desirability bias, also known as shy voter syndrome, where people are hesitant to reveal their voting preferences for candidates involved in scandals.
Reckless driving conviction and investigation On January 21, 2022, a year after his first run for attorney general, a
Virginia State Trooper clocked him speeding on
Interstate 64 at 116 miles per hour – 46 over the speed limit – resulting in a reckless driving conviction in
New Kent County. Of the 1,000 hours of
community service he performed as part of his
plea deal, 500 were for his own
political action committee and the other 500 were for the
NAACP Virginia State Conference. On October 22, 2025, a New Kent County Circuit Court judge approved a
special prosecutor to investigate Jones's plea deal. On October 25, 2025, a new special prosecutor was appointed after the previous one
recused himself. ==Attorney General of Virginia==