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Jerry Kilgore (politician)

American politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ6183877 ↗
Source-derived summary

Jerry Walter Kilgore (born August 23, 1961) is an American attorney and politician. A Republican, he served as Attorney General of Virginia from 2002 to 2005 and was the Republican nominee for Governor of Virginia in 2005, losing to Democratic nominee Tim Kaine. He is a partner with the law firm Cozen O'Connor and is a member of the firm's leading State Attorneys General practice in Washington, D.C. He also serves as finance chair of the Republican Party of Virginia.

He was previously a partner at McGuireWoods and a senior advisor with McGuireWoods Consulting in Richmond, Virginia.

Background

Born in Kingsport, Tennessee on August 23, 1961, Kilgore earned a B.A. degree summa cum laude from Clinch Valley College (now the University of Virginia's College at Wise) in 1983 and a J.D. from the William & Mary School of Law in 1986. His twin brother, Terry Kilgore, has served in the Virginia House of Delegates since 1994.

Early career

During 1987 and 1992, Kilgore served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. He was Secretary of Public Safety under Governor George Allen from 1994 to 1998 and was elected Attorney General of Virginia in the 2001 Virginia Attorney General election by a wide margin.

Kilgore is known for his conservative views on social issues, especially with respect to gun control, religion and abortion. He was critical of Democratic Governor Mark Warner's fiscal policy, particularly the 2004 budget that included substantial tax increases.

Editorial summary

“Jerry Kilgore (politician)” enters the record as american politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jerry, Kilgore and politician can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1961, 2002, 2005, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1961-08-23. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Jerry, Kilgore and politician.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Jerry Kilgore (politician)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jerry, Kilgore and politician provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6183877. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 2002, 2005 and 1983.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Jerry Kilgore (politician) primary sources, Jerry Kilgore (politician) archive and Jerry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Jerry Kilgore (politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.