Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has deep ties to Leonard Leo, the conservative activist who helped engineer the rightward shift of the Supreme Court, through a close friend and a consulting firm they co-founded. That little-known connection has gone largely unexamined as Miyares seeks re-election this fall, even after he personally intervened in 2023 to oppose an investigation into Leo’s nonprofit dealings.
Miyares, the first Hispanic American elected to statewide office in Virginia, holds a campaign cash advantage in his 2025 re-election race, with more than $7 million in cash on hand as of the end of August, outpacing his Democratic opponent, Jerrauld “Jay” Jones. The haul makes Miyares the only Republican statewide candidate in Virginia to outraise his Democratic rival. His campaign is bolstered by $4 million from the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which has long been bankrolled in part by Leo’s Concord Fund. But Miyares’ deep connections to Leo, whose network has shaped the U.S. Supreme Court and funneled billions in dark money to conservative causes, center on Gary Marx, a close friend and political consultant.
In 2013, Miyares and Marx, friends since their James Madison University days, co-founded Madison Strategies, a consulting firm serving conservative clients. During his 2015 Virginia House of Delegates campaign, Miyares reported a stake worth more than $250,000 in the firm, which disappeared from later disclosures without further details. Marx’s ties to Leo run deep: He led the Judicial Crisis Network (now called the Concord Fund) until 2011 and remains a board member for the Concord Fund and another Leo network group called The 85 Fund. Madison Strategies, in which Marx still holds a 35% stake, has been a paid consultant for multiple Leo network groups. In 2023, Marx joined the board of American Miracle, a Virginia nonprofit echoing Miyares’ “American Miracle” rhetoric and promoting him on social media. It received $50,000 indirectly from Leo’s Rule of Law Trust via Right Vote Inc., where Marx serves as a board member.
Marx and Madison Strategies have been fixtures in Miyares’ political rise. Madison Strategies provided in-kind donations worth $55,000 to his campaigns, and Marx registered the website that Miyares still uses, in addition to donating $2,500 in services and $250 cash in 2015. In 2021, Marx said in a tweet that he had served on Miyares’ successful AG campaign. Leo’s orbit also supported Miyares: Greg Mueller, Leo’s partner at CRC Advisors, gave $2,500 in 2021, and the Judicial Crisis Network has posted positive tweets about him.
Miyares’ ties to the Leo network drew fresh attention in 2024, when Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb opened an investigation into whether Leo was using his nonprofits for personal enrichment. Miyares joined 12 Republican attorneys general in signing a letter warning Schwalb against pursuing the probe. Unlike most of his GOP colleagues, Miyares went a step further by sending a separate letter asserting that Virginia held ‘exclusive oversight’ over the Concord Fund, one of Leo’s key groups.
While Leo is beloved among many conservatives for helping to shape the judiciary, his network’s opacity makes it impossible for the public to know the original funding source behind the money it donates to Republican political organizations like RAGA and the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). Groups like Accountable.US and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have accused Leo of using nonprofits to obscure donors and channel money into politics without transparency, as well as for funneling money into his own for-profit businesses.
RAGA, joined by the RSLC and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s “Secure Your Vote” initiative, is also planning a seven-figure voter turnout campaign ahead of the Nov. 4 state election, including digital spending to back Miyares. The Leo-tied Concord Fund was one of the RSLC’s largest donors in 2021 and 2022, funding ad blitzes to back Republican candidates.
Besides RAGA, top donors to Miyares’ campaign this year have included Dominion Energy ($1.1 million), coal company president Richard Baxter Gilliam ($250,000), HVAC company CEO Charles Bradford Hobbs ($100,000), and tobacco company Altria ($86,013). Jones’ top donors include the Democratic Attorneys General Association ($2.1 million), environmentalist group Clean Virginia Fund ($1.6 million) and hedge fund billionaire heiress Liz Simons ($750,000).
