The Republican nominee for Oregon’s U.S. Senate seat is a staunch supporter of QAnon and is fighting against her own campaign to promote the dangerous conspiracy network.
Insurance agent Jo Rae Perkins won the GOP nomination by a landslide earlier this week to run against Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat. Part of her voter appeal might be her belief in QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy that claims President Donald Trump is involved in stopping a pedophile network of Satan-worshipping cannibals who have infiltrated every level of government and the mass media.
Republicans, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee and The White House, have so far declined to comment on their new ally, ABC News reported. But Perkins own campaign team attempted to distance its candidate from QAnon on Wednesday, saying in a statement that Perkins “would never describe herself as a follower.”
Perkins didn’t agree with that statement, telling ABC News the following day that she was “literally physically in tears” after she read the statement on her personal Twitter account.
“My campaign is gonna kill me,” Perkins told the publication. “How do I say this? Some people think that I follow Q like I follow Jesus. Q is the information and I stand with the information resource.”
That “information resource” is bunk and has led to dangerous real-world consequences. In 2018, a man took his AR-15 and his armored car to Hoover Dam to demand the government come clean about supposed crimes related to QAnon beliefs. A Colorado woman was arrested earlier this year after attempting to kidnap her son with the help of QAnon followers. And the New York Police Department arrested a woman in April who was carrying 18 knives and threatened political figures.