Shelly Headen, the Democratic nominee for North Carolina House District 62, once posted on Facebook that "our only hope is an attack on US soil… preferably Alabama, Louisiana… where the stupid people live." On X, after Kamala Harris received the Democratic nomination, she wrote: "I'm so excited! Ready for the MAGAs to die off!!"
The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus, the Guilford County Democratic Party, and the state Democratic Party have all pulled their support.
District 62 covers parts of northwestern Guilford County — Oak Ridge, Stokesdale, portions of northwest Greensboro. It went Trump +6 in 2024. Headen was running against Republican Rep. John Blust. The word "was" is doing some work there, because a candidate without party backing in a district that already leans six points the other way isn't running for anything. She's on a ballot.
The posts go beyond standard partisan venom. Headen wrote on LinkedIn that Trump was "getting close to surpassing Hilter" — she misspelled Hitler — and called the MAGA movement "more destructive and evil than the Nazis." During a visit to the Dachau concentration camp, she posted on Facebook suggesting Trump supporters belonged in the crematorium ovens. She also wrote that people "need to experience sexual assault" to understand Trump's victims.
Read those again if you need to. A woman running for state office compared half the country to Nazis, wished for a domestic terror attack on red states, and suggested political opponents deserved cremation — and then asked those same voters to put her in charge of their laws.
Headen's response has been a masterclass in non-apology. She paid a consulting firm $30,000 to review her social media history, says she doesn't recall the exact wording of some posts, and offered a generic apology to "those hurt." On the party's decision to cut her loose, she said: "They're doing what's best for the party, and that's what they should do."
Then she compared herself to Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and Abraham Lincoln.
State Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton made the call to withdraw support, and credit where it's earned — that was the only move available. But the timeline matters. These posts weren't hidden. They weren't leaked from a private group chat. They were public, on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, sitting there while the party vetted and nominated her. The Guilford County Democratic Party endorsed a candidate who publicly fantasized about terror attacks on American soil and cremating political opponents. They found out when everyone else did.
The vetting failure is the story underneath the story. Headen's name stays on the ballot because absentee ballots have already been sent and the withdrawal deadline has passed. Voters in District 62 will see her name next to the Democratic Party label whether the party wants them to or not.
Someone who wishes death on the electorate, compares herself to Christ when caught, and couldn't even spell the dictator she was invoking — that's not a fringe social media troll. That was the nominee.