Cal Cunningham, the Democrat running against Thom Tillis for the US Senate, just bowed out of town hall after admitting that he has been sending sexually suggestive texts to a woman that was not his wife:
A U.S. Senate town hall scheduled for Monday afternoon is off. Unfortunately @CalforNC has backed out. Organizers will try to reschedule. #ncpol #ncsen
— Jeff Tiberii (@j_tibs) October 5, 2020
I’m disappointed for the organizers who worked hard to put this together; also that we will not hear from Cunningham about sexually suggestive texts he sent to a woman (not his wife, nor mother of his children). Fascinated to see when he publicly addresses this..#ncpol #29days
— Jeff Tiberii (@j_tibs) October 5, 2020
Cunningham admitted to this on Friday night and here’s more on that from the News and Observer:
North Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, a married father of two, sent text messages of a sexual nature to a woman who is not his wife, his campaign confirmed Friday night.
The text messages between Cunningham and Arlene Guzman Todd, a public relations strategist from California, were first reported Thursday night by NationalFile.com.
The report included pictures of the text messages, in which Cunningham and Guzman, who is also married according to the report, talked about kissing each other and more.
“Would make my day to roll over and kiss you about now,” said one text message from Cunningham.
In one text from Guzman, she says: “I have flexibility this month — done with school, training, big RFPs, etc. So the only thing I want on my to do list is you.”
The text messages do not contain dates. In one of them, Cunningham indicates he is “nervous about the next 100 days.” Election Day is Nov. 3. One hundred days before that would have been July 26.
The Cunningham campaign confirmed the authenticity of the text messages.
Here’s those texts from the National File (Cal’s texts are dark, woman’s texts are blue):
Can you think of something more boneheaded than sending texts like this to a woman who isn’t your wife during a campaign for national office? Thom Tillis must be jumping up and down right now.
It’s obvious why Cunningham canceled his town hall, because he will have to answer for this and he clearly wants to avoid making this as much of a spectacle as he can. Also he’s currently leading Tillis by an average of +6.5 points according to RCP, so he’s hoping to ride out the next month in hopes that he can still win. Hopefully the local media won’t cover for him like the national media will.