Republican beats Democrat in deep blue state after his social media history gets uncovered

A Republican pulled off a genuine shocker in deep-blue Northern Virginia on Tuesday, snagging a county-level seat that nobody saw coming after the Democrat nominee's ancient social media skeletons came tumbling out of the closet.

Jeannie LaCroix, 64, won the special election for a Prince William County Board of Supervisors seat, beating Democrat Muhammed Sufiyan Casim, 36, a Muslim Pakistani immigrant. The turning point? Revelations that Casim, back in his 20s in the 2010s, had posted a bunch of racist, misogynist, and antisemitic stuff online, as Potomac Local News laid out.

Casim tried to clean it up in an interview with the Prince William Times. "I wasn’t realizing the cultural weight and the context, so I used that word foolishly, but not in a derogatory or prejudicial way," he said, explaining that he had used the N-word to refer to his black friend. "Back in those days, a lot of kids would use that word both with kids of African American origin and people of any brown ethnicity." He also suggested he had just been copying the behavior of "kids" of "brown ethnicity" at the time.

In a March 2 X post where he confirmed he wasn't dropping out, Casim went the victim route, blaming the rhetoric of the former Republican chairman of the Board (who left office seven years ago) for emboldening neo-Nazis, then adding, "As a Muslim-American who has experienced what it’s like to live in America after 9/11, discussions around cultural sensitivity are very important to me."

LaCroix took 43.7% of the vote to Casim's 37%, with write-ins grabbing 19.2%, per the Prince William County Office of Elections via Potomac Local News. The Republican rode the wave of a fractured Democratic side. Pamela Montgomery, who lost the primary to Casim, jumped in as a write-in just a week before Election Day because of those decade-old posts. She even led in fundraising despite the late start.

"For Democrats, confronting racism is not optional. It is foundational," Montgomery, who is Black, wrote in a letter published by the Prince William Times on Election Day. "When racist language surfaces, especially from someone seeking public office, the response should be clear: acknowledge it, condemn it, and demand accountability."

This race filled the vacancy left by Democrat Margaret Franklin, who resigned after winning a Virginia House of Delegates seat in January. Franklin had crushed Casim in the Dem primary for that state House spot by more than 2-to-1.

Prince William County is the kind of affluent, diverse D.C. suburb that Democrats usually own. Kamala Harris carried it by 18 points in 2024, and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger won it by 34 points in November 2025. The northeastern precincts around Woodbridge are some of the bluest in the whole county, per 2024 VoteHub data.

LaCroix's win stands out as one of the rare flips from blue to red in a special election during President Donald Trump's second term. Meanwhile, over the past year, Democrats have been flipping multiple state legislative seats in areas Trump carried by double digits in 2024.

Sometimes the past really does refuse to stay buried, especially when it's dumb stuff someone posted online in their 20s. And sometimes voters decide that "I was young and foolish" doesn't quite cut it when you're running for office. Who knew accountability could swing both ways?

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