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West Deptford candidate drops from race after Facebook scandal

In a handwritten note to the West Deptford GOP, Mike Krawitz has withdrawn from the race for township committee. The move came a day after he earned national notoriety for allegedly harassing a female journalist on Facebook.

    by Jessica Parks
    Published 

Michael Krawitz is withdrawing his candidacy for West Deptford township committee a day after sparking a social media uproar for allegedly harassing a female journalist on Facebook.

Krawitz, a Republican who has run for local office several times before, said Monday that his Facebook account had been hacked. He denied writing a post that morning in which he hoped Daily Beast journalist Olivia Nuzzi would be raped.

In a hand-written note to his party Tuesday, Krawitz bowed out of the race but did not mention the controversy.

He did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.



The West Deptford GOP, which initially defended Krawitz and said it was investigating a possible hack, had reversed course earlier Tuesday and called for Krawitz's resignation.

In a statement, the party's executive board said that "through the day, our leadership reviewed all the facts surrounding this matter and we cannot find any reasonable reason to believe Mr. Krawitz's account was hacked in anyway."

The party appeared to confirm that Krawitz's antagonistic comments toward Nuzzi went back to at least December 2015, and denounced Krawitz's words as "repulsive, threatening [and] demeaning rhetoric."

Most of the offending posts have been deleted, and Krawitz's Facebook photo has been changed to a 1992 magazine cover of Donald Trump under the headline "Fighting Back."

Krawitz had gotten on to the Republican ballot via write-in after no Republican candidates ran in the primary, the party said.

The party's full statement is posted below:

"Yesterday, the West Deptford Republican Party was contacted regarding Facebook comments made against a reporter from the Daily Beast by Mike Krawitz, one of our candidates for Township Committee, who won his candidacy through a write in vote in the Primary last June.
"When we decided to not seek re-election this year, we were saddened to see no one step up from the Party to run in the Primary to succeed us on the Township Committee.
— As we began to investigate the matter we were led to believe that Mr. Krawitz's Facebook account was hacked and that these hateful comments were not made by him. However, through the day our leadership reviewed all the facts surrounding this matter and we cannot find any reasonable reason to believe Mr. Krawitz's account was hacked in anyway.