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WINCHESTER, Va. – What was once the most contested city in the Confederacy is again divided — this time on the merits of the candidates in the upcoming Virginia elections.
While there are no longer recurring bloody battles along “The Valley Road” (now US-11) through Winchester, residents in the city in Virginia’s northwest corner — the region’s apple capital in the fall and also home of GOP gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears — offered competing views on the issues commanding the race.
Fox News Digital spoke with multiple Winchester, Virginia, area residents along the Loudoun Street arcade, a pedestrian-only portion of the historic city’s central avenue that comprises several shops, restaurants and a Civil War museum.
Of the murder-texts scandal enveloping Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, Kevin Callinan from neighboring Stephens City, Virginia, said that “no normal person” would say what Jones said about then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah.
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Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican, left, is running against Democrat Abigail Spanberger, right, in the state’s governor’s race in 2025. (Kristen Zeis/The Washington Post via Getty Images; Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“It just was really horrendous,” he said of Jones’ conversation referencing murdering Gilbert and seeing harm come to what the Democrat called the Republican’s “little fascist” children.
“He should have just had the moral of dignity to just say, ‘I’m gonna resign. I said that, it was horrible to even say it. Even if it was a joke, it is horrible, and I should have just walked away,'” Callinan said.
Nancy from Winchester, Virginia, said Jones “crossed the line” and that Earle-Sears is the best candidate to lead Virginia in light of Spanberger’s response to the controversy.
J.C. Moore from Berryville, Virginia, — a rural population center and gateway to Virginia’s horse country in neighboring Clarke County — told Fox News Digital he wasn’t sure if Jones should be pushed out.
Moore pointed to previous instances of political rhetoric referencing violence or murder — citing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s “bullseye” controversy focused on Hillary Clinton.
“It’s distasteful,” he said of the overarching rhetoric. Jones’ case “should be addressed, it should be criticized. But I’m not sure about total banishment.”
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Danielle from Winchester, Virginia, said Spanberger’s campaign would be “OK — if it wasn’t for Jay Jones.”
“Her entire platform is going to fall because of Jones,” she said, adding that Spanberger is otherwise very smart and an “amazing” candidate, but that Jones’ texts overshadow the Democratic ticket.
Nancy added that Spanberger hasn’t sufficiently addressed the Jones scandal.
“She said she would leave it up to the voters — which I think if she’s going to be our governor, she definitely needs to take a stand.”
While not Virginia voters, a couple visiting the area from Florida said they’ve been following the race closely from 1,000 miles away.
“That attorney general should drop out,” the gentleman called out to Fox News Digital as he passed, adding that if they lived in Virginia they would be voting for Earle-Sears.
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Asked about the transgender bathroom controversy in nearby Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William, Virginia, counties — and how Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger has handled criticism of her responses to it — Callinan said she has been “ducking the issue.”
“She keeps saying, ‘I’m a mother of three daughters,’ but … the basic issue of ‘should I have a boy in the bathroom with my three daughters?’ I think she’d say ‘no’ — but politically she just won’t even be honest about it,” he said.
“She would not want a grown man in a fitness center with her daughters, but she knows she doesn’t want to say it,” he said, appearing to refer to the case of chronically charged sex offender Richard Cox in Arlington, Virginia.
In terms of which candidate can best handle the crime crisis that is particularly evident in urban areas, Callinan said President Donald Trump has done a “great job” in Washington, D.C., proper and that neighboring areas of Virginia would be best served by Earle-Sears following the president’s lead.
“The Democrats are never going to toughen up because they know it will alienate a significant part of their base,” he said.
Chris Ladner from Vienna, Virginia, in heavily Democratic Fairfax County, said Spanberger has been “unserious” about the transgender bathrooms controversy and “dodging what she really thinks.”
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Ladner said he supports how Earle-Sears has responded to the issue.
Living close to Washington, Ladner added that Earle-Sears and incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares would do and have done a good job respectively on the crime issue.
“Jay Jones will not be good at that,” Ladner said.
Nancy separately agreed.
“Absolutely it would be Sears (who would be better). Number one, she was military, number two she has a clear idea of what’s right and wrong.”
“And plus, I like her religious views,” she said of the devout Christian.
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Moore, however, disagreed in his remarks to Fox News Digital.
He said Spanberger has been “deeper into” law enforcement — as she served as a federal agent prior to an interceding tenure in Congress — and that her economic-equality positions will help the issue.
“Most of (the crime problem) you can trace back to economic inequity and poverty,” he said.
Danielle added that neither candidate is ideal to fight the crime crisis, but that if Spanberger is able to force Jones off the ticket, she would win that proverbial tie-breaker.
Later this week, the attention shifts to the other end of the Zachary Taylor Highway from Winchester, as Miyares and Jones square off at the University of Richmond in their one and only debate.
The battle is likely to be headlined by the murder-texts controversy. The debate also notably takes place just over the city line from Henrico County, Virginia, where Spanberger hails from.
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In the lieutenant governor sweeps, Republican nominee John Reid repeatedly has called for debates against Democratic nominee state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi of Chesterfield, but any potential bout remains at an impasse.
Meanwhile, Earle-Sears has seen a campaign cash infusion since the Jones news broke, and on Monday released a new ad called “trigger” which uses snippets of her Norfolk debate to slam Spanberger’s response to the Jones controversy.
