Condemn John Gray or else.
That’s the message some Virginia Democrats have for Republicans running for office in Prince William County, Virginia.
Gray, who’s running for chair of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, is under fire for tweets from as far back as 2016.
“The Republican Party in Prince William County has nominated a misogynistic, bigoted racist to lead the county government,” said Virginia state Sen. Scott Surovell. He characterized Gray’s rhetoric as anti-woman, anti-African American, anti-Latino, anti-gay and anti-Muslim.
He spoke Wednesday at a news conference while standing shoulder to shoulder with Va. Sen. Jeremy McPike; Del. John Bell; and other Democratic candidates for local offices, many of whom held poster board signs depicting some of Gray’s tweets. Gray’s Twitter account does not show any new tweets since Aug. 31.
Gray told The Washington Post that he decided to delete some tweets because they were “completely inappropriate.”
Prince William County’s population is about 55% minority, with 23% of its residents foreign-born, Surovell said. “He basically condemns probably two-thirds of the people that he seeks to represent in very harsh, awful, horrific, extreme language,” he said.
When asked whether Gray should bow out of the race, a chorus of affirmative responses included, “Yes, absolutely.”
“For our point of view, any candidate who refuses to repudiate his behavior is telling Prince William County residents that they will tolerate misogyny, bigotry and hatred,” Surovell said. “We deserve to know how every single Republican running in this county stands on his candidacy,”
