Embattled Kansas House candidate Aaron Coleman announced on social media Sunday that he is dropping out of the race for the District 37 seat in Wyandotte County.
Coleman announced his plan to withdraw less than a week after he won the Democratic primary against longtime state Rep. Stan Frownfelter by 14 votes.
No other candidate was on the ballot, almost ensuring him a seat in the House.
Coleman, 19, was under fire from his own party after acknowledging allegations of online bullying, blackmail and revenge porn when he was in middle school.
A spokeswoman for the governor told The Associated Press Coleman was unfit for a seat in the Kansas Legislature.
In a long thread posted on Twitter, Coleman explained why he ran for the House seat, saying he wanted to bring “dignity to our citizens.”
Shortly after 2 p.m., he revealed that he didn’t plan to campaign for the seat.
“Now that I have dropped out of the race, I hope the circular firing squad of the left will take a breather and get to work stopping my misogynist former opponent from getting back into a position where he can vote again to put women in prison for having an abortion,” he tweeted.
“There are a lot of talented people in HD37,” Coleman tweeted. “We can do better than Rep. Coleman OR Rep. Frownfelter. “Let me just leave it at that.”
He refused to answer questions for an interview.
Later Sunday, Coleman started criticizing Frownfelter on Twitter, comparing him to a fictional super villain from Batman.
“If you’re a woman of childbearing age, it’s fingernail-biting time,” Coleman tweeted.
“Frownfelter is a corporatist neoliberal anti-choice politician. He’s like that comic book villain Two Face from Batman. He flips a coin. Heads – he votes for a woman’s right to choose. Tails – he votes against.”
Early Sunday about 1 a.m., Coleman foreshadowed his announcement on social media where he lamented about getting into the race with a couple of tweets that indicated he might be having a change of heart.
“In all seriousness, feminism hasn’t got a chance so long as Donatism remains on the march,” Coleman tweeted.
“The progressive circular firing squad has done more to uphold the status quo than conservatives could have ever dreamed of. I will be releasing a press release in the morning.”
In a second tweet, Coleman expressed regret for his past actions, saying he hoped to “continually learn from them as I grow into the person I hope to be.
“My dad is in the hospital and I never expected this kind of attention. It’s too much. I need to focus on taking care of my family & surviving the COVID great depresssion.”
At this point, Coleman can only withdraw his name from the ballot under strict circumstances such as severe medical hardship or if he moves out of state.
In this case, Coleman said he was withdrawing so he can take care of his family.
If a nominee withdraws from a race because of a severe medical hardship for either them or their immediate family, they must send the secretary of state certification of the hardship signed by a medical doctor.
If Coleman’s name is removed the ballot, it would be up to precinct committee members to nominate a replacement.
“Hopefully, we get all this behind us,” House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer said. “It is consuming too much of the party’s time right now. It would be good to move on.”
Reached Sunday, Frownfelter said he would seek the nomination from the precinct committee members but would follow through with his write-in campaign.
Kristina Smith, treasurer of the Wyandotte County Republican Party who has been endorsed by Kansans for Life, also is running as a write-in candidate.
Only once in Kansas political history has an incumbent lost his primary only to come back and win the general election as a write-in candidate.
Frownfelter expressed sympathy that Coleman came under such intense criticism.
“I’m sorry that he caught a lot of heat for it, but still he put himself in that position as to what went down,” Frownfelter said.
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