Jason Miyares

Miyares introduced a non-binding resolution (H.J. 1777) in 2016 condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

His mother fled from Cuba in 1965.

Miyares earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from James Madison University and a Juris Doctor from the College of William & Mary’s Law School.

He was Chairman of the Hampton Roads Young Republicans and a founding member of the Hampton Roads Federalist Society.

He later served as an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Virginia Beach.

Jason Stuart Miyares (born February 11, 1976) is an American attorney and politician serving as the 48th Attorney General of Virginia since 2022.

Miyares worked on George Allen's 2000 Senate campaign.

He was later campaign manager and advisor to Republican Scott Rigell in the 2010 and 2012 congressional elections.

He was later a partner with the consulting firm Madison Strategies.

He also worked at the Virginia Beach law firm Hanger Law until his election to the office of Attorney General.

A Republican, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2015, from the 82nd district in northeastern Virginia Beach, and served three terms from 2016 to 2022.

He was elected Attorney General of Virginia in 2021.

The son of a refugee, he is the first Hispanic elected statewide in Virginia.

Miyares was born in Greensboro, North Carolina and attended public schools in Virginia Beach.

In 2015, Miyares ran for the Virginia House of Delegates' seat being vacated by Bill DeSteph, who ran successfully for the Virginia State Senate.

Unopposed in the June 2015 Republican primary, he defeated Democrat Bill Fleming in the November 2015 general election.

He was the first Cuban American elected to the Virginia General Assembly.

Miyares opposes abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy, with exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother; he supports maintaining access to the commonly used abortion pill mifepristone and opposes prosecuting people for abortions.

He supports the death penalty, and opposed the decision to abolish capital punishment in Virginia in 2021.

He endorsed Marco Rubio in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, and was Rubio's Virginia campaign co-chairman.

In 2016, amid the Cuban thaw, Miyares criticized Governor Terry McAuliffe's outreach to Cuba.

He was reelected in 2017 and 2019.

He served on three committees: General Laws, Courts of Justice, and Transportation.

Miyares also served on the Virginia Board of Veterans Services and as Chairman of the Commission on Equal Opportunity for Virginians in Aspiring and Diverse Communities.

He was the 2018 and 2019 "Legislator of the Year" by the College of Affordability and Public Trust and 2018 "Legislator of the Year" by the Hampton Roads Military Officers Association.

In 2019 he received the "Action Award" by the Safe House Project.

Miyares voted against the Medicaid expansion bill (HB 5001) in the 2018 legislative session.

In 2020, Miyares opposed legislation to increase the minimum wage in Virginia.

In August 2020, he offered HB 5037, a bill that would grant immunity, except in cases of willful misconduct or gross negligence, to public officials and businesses who followed public health measures to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.

In September 2020, Miyares voted against legislation to authorize local governments to remove Confederate monuments on public property.

In May 2021, Miyares was nominated as the Republican candidate for Virginia Attorney General.

He ran against Mark Herring, the incumbent Democratic attorney general, who sought a third term in the November 2021 general election.

Miyares was selected at the Virginia Republican Party's "unassembled" convention, in which party delegates cast ranked-choice ballots at polling sites across the state.

Miyares defeated three other candidates: Leslie Haley, Chuck Smith, and Jack White.

In the final round, Miyares defeated Smith, a hard-right candidate, by a closer-than-expected margin of 52% to 48%.

During his campaign against Herring, Miyares emphasized crime issues.

He opposed proposals for the elimination of qualified immunity and declined to take a position on what he would do in the controversial police killing of Bijan Ghaisar.

In the November 2021 election, Miyares defeated Herring in a tight race, becoming the first Hispanic and Cuban American to be elected Attorney General of Virginia.

In January 2022, Miyares withdrew the Virginia AG Office's brief to the Supreme Court, submitted under his predecessor, supporting a challenge to Mississippi's abortion ban of restricting abortion to 15-weeks.

On May 10, 2023, Miyares defended his decision to not join with 22 other Republican state attorneys general when they filed a lawsuit seeking to ban the abortion medication mifepristone, saying he supported the Food and Drug Administration's regulations.