Virginia’s X-rated candidate Susanna Gibson

OPINION:

Susanna Gibson’s candidacy for the Virginia General Assembly is circling the drain as some Democrats are circling the wagons in her defense.

Earlier this month, The Washington Post broke the news that Mrs. Gibson had “performed sex acts with her husband for a live, online audience and encouraged viewers to pay them with ‘tips’ for specific [sex act] requests.” Apparently, “more than a dozen” videos were viewable on a seedy website.

Virginia Democrats have leapt to Mrs. Gibson’s defense, realizing that it’s too late in the election calendar to pressure her to drop out of the race so she can be replaced with a less tainted candidate. In a bit of poetic justice, that’s because balloting is already underway in the gratuitously long 45-day early-voting period that Virginia Democrats forced into state law.

Mrs. Gibson didn’t deny that she and her husband had appeared in the videos. Instead, she blamed Republican operatives — reportedly unaffiliated with her opponent’s campaign — for revealing their existence.

Mrs. Gibson’s escapades — not the revelation of them — give the term “dirty tricks” in a political context a whole new meaning.

A liberal who supports abortion access, Mrs. Gibson is running for the open 57th District seat in the House of Delegates against Republican David Owen, a retired homebuilder. The suburban Richmond district, covering parts of Henrico and Goochland counties, is competitive. It went narrowly to Republican Glenn Youngkin in the 2021 gubernatorial race and even more narrowly for Democrats in the 2022 congressional elections.

With control of both chambers of the General Assembly up for grabs on Nov. 7, it’s shamefully clear that the only thing Democrats defending Mrs. Gibson care about is winning back the House of Delegates, even if it means voting for a candidate with character flaws that ought to be disqualifying.

Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, Portsmouth Democrat, proved that point when she wrote on the aptly named social media site X: “Today, Glenn Youngkin’s team leaked videos of @SusannaSGibson to try to embarrass and humiliate her, and they failed completely. Now, we are going to make this the biggest fundraising day of her campaign.”

Mrs. Lucas urged her followers to make a campaign contribution to Mrs. Gibson.

With a reported 5,700 subscribers to her bawdy “channel,” Susanna Gibson surely must have known when she entered the race of the risk that her lascivious behavior was likely to be discovered. She chose to run anyway.

Now her political damage control effort involves calling the revelation of the videos “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.”

“It won’t intimidate me, and it won’t silence me,” she added in a written statement. “My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family, because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”

Mr. Owen’s response to the revelation of his opponent’s conduct has been appropriately measured, but he shouldn’t allow his adversary to flip the script as if her wanton deeds were his. This incident gives voters in the 57th District an unmistakable look at the character of the candidates in the race. The choice is obvious.