CA10 Congressional candidate Ted Howze denies making disparaging social media posts
A series of inflammatory social media posts on accounts linked to a Turlock Republican congressional candidate sparked intense response, even as he denied he posted them.
The Facebook posts, tweets and retweets are ugly: The founder of Islam was a rapist and pedophile. The parents of so-called Dreamers — the Mexican immigrants who came here as children — are criminals and should be sent back to Mexico. One retweet mocks a survivor of the Parkland High School shooting, in which 17 people were killed.
They were from the social media accounts of Ted Howze, the former Turlock Councilman and Republican challenger to U.S. Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, in the November election for California’s 10th Congressional District, which covers Stanislaus and southern San Joaquin counties.
Howze, 53, did not respond to requests for an interview but issued a statement.
But his campaign manager, Tim Rosales, said in a phone interview Thursday that “people he (Howze) knew, people he was familiar with made these comments (and retweets). He’s very upset. This is not who he is. He really is disgusted by the whole thing.”
Rosales would not say who those people were who had access to Howze’s social media accounts.
The website Politico first reported this story Wednesday based on screenshots it had obtained from Howze’s Twitter and Facebook accounts from January 2017 to March 2018. The posts, tweets and retweets were deleted or blocked from public view more than two years ago.
Howze has described himself as a conservative and supporter of President Donald Trump. He ran to the right of longtime U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, in 2018 and finished third in that year’s primary behind Denham and Harder. Harder then defeated Denham in the November election.
Howze’s Facebook posts, tweets and retweets include:
▪ “We dream of returning them to Mexico where their actual families & homes are,” a Howze tweet said in response to a Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, tweet calling for a permanent legislative solution for the so-called Dreamers. The Howze tweet included “#DeportThemAll,” “#BuildTheWall” and #NoAmnesty.”
▪ “Every member of my family dreams of not being a victim of an illegal foreign invader that you #Democrats seem hell bent on putting ahead of your citizen constituents,” states a tweet in response to another Harris tweet.
▪ “If you’ve been in a squirt gun fight you’ve seen more ‘gun violence’ than David Hogg,” states one retweet on one of the survivors of Florida’s Parkland High School mass shooting from February 2018.
▪ “European leaders are willfully ceding their continent to religious extremists following the teachings of their Pedophile Prophet Mohamed ... ,” states another Facebook post referencing Muslims and the need for the United States to separate itself from Europe.
▪ A retweet disparaging Palestinian-American organizer Linda Sarsour, saying if is she is the average Muslim woman than “I finally understand why so many Muslim men would rather copulate with a goat!”
▪ Responding to a tweet from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, calling for Trump’s impeachment, with “How do we impeach say a Southern California Congresswoman who’s been hitting the crack pipe too hard?”
Howze denies he made comments
But in a statement Howze said he did not do any of this.
“Any posts like this are disgusting and I absolutely disagree with their negative and ugly ideas,” the statement said. “Like many folks in my age group, I learned a very painful lesson about protecting and regularly monitoring all social media accounts for unauthorized activity. I‘m upset, horrified and extremely offended at the idea that such ugly ideas were ever posted on my behalf.
“Any hurtful comments clearly do not represent who I am, now or ever. As a Native American Tribal member I am very aware and sensitive to all discrimination. My record of service in the community and the values that service represents clearly demonstrate my character. I do not and will not tolerate divisive attacks on others.“
The posts, tweets and retweets are mixed in with comments about loved one’s birthdays, trips and vacations as well as support of the National Rifle Association, Trump, his immigration policies and criticism of Democrats, liberals and abortion rights.
Politico reported that the posts, tweets and retweets were discovered by Ryan Williams, a Democratic operative who during the 2018 election season managed Uniting California, an effort “by the California Labor Federation and Tom Steyer’s NextGen America aimed at flipping Republican-held House seats.”
Williams, who is not now working on behalf of any political group, confirmed Thursday he took the screenshots of Howze’s social media when Howze started his run for Congress in March 2018. Williams told Politico that within a few hours the Twitter account had been deleted, and the Facebook posts had been deleted or removed from public view.
Rosales — Howze’s campaign manager — could not say why Howze did not remove them sooner if he were not responsible for them.
The social media comments drew criticism Thursday.
‘Needs to take full responsibility’
“It is very distressing that over the course of more than a year, as he was gearing up for a political campaign, Ted Howze says he didn’t know that such hateful content was posted on his social media,” according to a statement from the Central California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“As these are his accounts, the responsibility of what is posted on them lies with him,” the statement said. “His lack of answers about who was posting and why it took him so long to remove the posts is also concerning. He needs to take full responsibility and be fully transparent about what occurred.”
Hogg, one of the Parkland shooting survivors, posted on Twitter: “It’s sad when people running for office like Ted Howze have so much hate in their heart for the people they claim to want (to) serve. Public service is an act of love even for those you don’t agree with because you represent them too.”
Harder’s campaign said in a statement: “In this time of crisis, the last thing we need is politicians spewing hate and spreading dangerous conspiracy theories — and then when caught red-handed, lying about it. We’re better than this in the Valley. It’s time Ted Howze did the right thing — take responsibility for his hateful rhetoric and record and come clean with Central Valley families.”
Howze has been endorsed by eight of Stanislaus County’s nine mayors, including those representing the county’s biggest and second biggest cities, Modesto and Turlock.
Modesto Mayor Ted Brandvold initially declined to comment Thursday but released a statement Friday in support of Howze:
“I read the posts printed in The Bee and my first reaction is that it doesn’t sound like the Ted Howze I know,” Brandvold wrote in a text referring to the story on the newspaper’s website. “With all the political garbage I read on social media I’m not sure what is real any more.”
Turlock Mayor Amy Bublak declined to comment Thursday because she said she was not aware of the Politico story. She did not respond to a request for comment by Friday evening regarding The Bee’s story.
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 9:22 AM with the headline "CA10 Congressional candidate Ted Howze denies making disparaging social media posts."
