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<\/a><\/p>\nMay 10, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ET<\/p>\n
Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, recently found herself at the center of an increasingly common brouhaha in modern politics: She was forced to answer for a series of unfortunate tweets.<\/p>\n
In decade-old deleted posts unearthed by CNN<\/a> last week, Ms. McMorrow, 39, had expressed liberal views out-of-step with her current moderate image. Perhaps more damaging, she complained about the Midwestern weather shortly after moving from California \u2014 \u201cI don\u2019t like you, Michigan\u201d \u2014 and said that \u201ccars are dead,\u201d striking a nerve in the heart of the American auto industry.<\/p>\n Ms. McMorrow\u2019s primary opponents were quick to criticize, but she defended herself in a CNN interview, suggesting that her posts were evidence that she was a regular person who had not been carefully cultivating her public image years ago in anticipation of a future political bid.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not somebody who wanted to be in office or wanted to be in Congress when I was in diapers,\u201d she said. \u201cI tweeted normal things, like a normal person.\u201d<\/p>\n Such uproars have become so frequent that the pattern of reaction to them now feels routine.<\/p>\n First: Long-ago social media posts or video clips by political candidates get exposed online, prompting a backlash from rivals.<\/p>\n Second: The candidates downplay the comments and distance themselves, often insisting their views have changed.<\/p>\n Third: In some cases, voters and the news media tire of the topic and move on. Or they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n With a new generation of candidates who were active on X, Reddit and YouTube years before announcing political careers, it\u2019s unsurprising that so many are seeing their past statements come back to haunt them. (It has become so common that Ms. McMorrow is not even the only Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan to deal with such a controversy: Abdul El-Sayed, 41, also faced backlash for deleted posts from 2020, in which he had described the police as \u201cstanding armies we deploy against our own people.\u201d)<\/p>\n Opposition researchers have never had more content to draw from. Yet they say that voters also seem more willing than ever to forgive past unsavory viewpoints and social media misdeeds \u2014 spurred in part by President Trump, who has proved that voters can overlook outrageous statements.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore Trump, you could be really surprised by something you saw in the news about a politician,\u201d said Pat Dennis, the head of American Bridge, a Democratic opposition research firm. \u201cAfter Trump, everything is kind of boring in comparison, compared to the level of scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n A test case may well be Graham Platner, the 41-year-old presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, who has had to apologize for a host of disparaging and offensive past online comments about rape; police officers; and white, rural Americans. It didn\u2019t hurt him in his Democratic primary campaign, but it could still become an issue in a high-profile general-election race this fall.<\/p>\n Voters seem to be acknowledging a trade-off: If political parties are going to run more candidates who are viewed as normal people, the inevitable skeletons in their closet are more likely to surface online.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody has probably said something on social media at some point when they were mad,\u201d said Chuck Rocha, a veteran Democratic strategist who has advised a variety of Democrats who have had to address uncomfortable old posts.<\/p>\n If candidates own up to their mistakes and say, \u201c\u2018that was stupid, it was a long time ago,\u2019\u201d Mr. Rocha said, \u201cI have found that the American people will be very forgiving.\u201d<\/p>\n But trying to cover up a past misdeed, he added, \u201cmakes you seem like just another politician.\u201d<\/p>\n Not every regrettable social media post or video clip falls into the same category. Some misdeeds do still sink \u2014 or at least sully \u2014 careers and campaigns, as candidates like Mark Robinson, a Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina in 2024, have found out the hard way. Mr. Robinson\u2019s campaign tanked after CNN reported that he had called himself a \u201cblack Nazi,\u201d defended slavery and left sexually explicit messages on a pornography website.<\/p>\n Social media blunders seem to break down into three categories.<\/p>\n Embarrassing or unusual<\/p>\n James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, announced that his state legislative campaign would purchase only vegan products in a 2022 speech posted online. The resurfaced video prompted backlash in a state known for its barbecue. \u201cThis freak wants to ban BBQ,\u201d posted Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican.<\/p>\n In response to the beef about beef, Mr. Talarico\u2019s campaign spokesman posted a photo<\/a> of the candidate chomping down on a turkey leg. And Mr. Talarico, in front of a live podcast audience<\/a>, drew laughter by saying, \u201cI deny all accusations of veganism.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Talarico faced criticism for other past comments in speeches archived online and in social media posts. \u201cGod is nonbinary,\u201d he said on the state House floor in 2021. In 2020, talking about the \u201cvirus of racism\u201d and the Black Lives Matter movement, he wrote<\/a>, \u201cWhite skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview with The New York Times<\/a> in March, Mr. Talarico said the principles he was espousing \u201care certainly principles and values that I still hold.\u201d But, he acknowledged, \u201cI probably would have said them differently today.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2011, shortly after giving a viral speech as a 19-year-old about his experience being raised by a lesbian couple, Zach Wahls replied with specificity to a Reddit question about what type of pornography he liked. He also wrote that \u201cMy moms bought me a subscription to Playboy when I was 16 at my request.\u201d <\/p>\n In 2025, as he prepared to launch his campaign for Senate in Iowa, political strategists circulated the comments and conservative media outlets<\/a> picked at the lewd nature of his remarks.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a little funny that some folks are worried about Democrats\u2019 ability to connect with American men, while others think that old Reddit posts by me as a college kid, talking about Playboy and porn like a normal guy would do, would scare me off from running,\u201d Mr. Wahls, now one of the front-runners for the nomination, told The New York Times last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Old beliefs inconsistent with their current platform<\/p>\n Julia Letlow, a Republican candidate for Senate in Louisiana, is running to Senator Bill Cassidy\u2019s right, accusing her fellow Republican of being insufficiently devoted to President Trump.<\/p>\n But in 2020, Ms. Letlow herself expressed views that clash with MAGA priorities. While interviewing to become the president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, she told a hiring panel that she would prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives if she got the job, and lamented the lack of Black female faculty members.<\/p>\n The interview, posted to YouTube, caused a stir when Fox News resurfaced it this spring. \u201cLiberal Letlow was pushing D.E.I. policies at U.L.M.,\u201d a spokesman for Mr. Cassidy said.<\/p>\n Ms. Letlow\u2019s campaign pushed back, saying that \u201cShe stood with President Trump as he dismantled this ideology across the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n While running for mayor of New York City last year, Zohran Mamdani was forced to answer for past statements that critics used to hammer the democratic socialist as far left and out of step with most New Yorkers.<\/p>\n He said he would apologize<\/a> to police officers for one 2020 tweet, which accused the department of being racist and homophobic and included a call to defund the police. Mr. Mamdani said his old comments were \u201cmade at the height of frustration\u201d and did not reflect his current \u201cview of public safety and the fact that police will be critical partners in delivering public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n Especially inflammatory<\/p>\n Nate Blouin, one of the leading Democratic candidates for a House district in Utah, came under fire last month when the news outlet Punchbowl News reported<\/a> that he had made a series of crass and offensive jokes and comments on Reddit and niche sports forums between 2009 and 2015.<\/p>\n He insulted members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, saying their ideology was \u201cfostering ignorance and intolerance.\u201d And he made light of sexual assault after a Brigham Young University student was charged with sexual battery, writing, \u201cgood ol\u2019 mormon kid. had to let out the pent up sexual frustration somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n