Christian missionary and Harvard and Stanford educated computer scientist John Gibbs. Along with being a supporter of Donald Trump, he also once advocated against women having the right to vote, cited rumours that a prominent Democrat participated in Satanic rites, and speculated that the lost city of Atlantis might be buried beneath the North Pole.
The viability of Gibbs’ campaign for the Republican congressional nomination and the size of the possible Republican House majority depend on his ability to persuade swing voters to support the first version.
He is a member of a group of divisive GOP nominees for the House who are putting the Democratic majorities in Congress under pressure as a result of the economy. GOP candidates who have seemed to support far-fetched conspiracy theories, dispute the legitimacy of the 2020 election, or have a history of dubious utterances or internet postings are in swing-seat contests in a number of states.
They might undermine Republican wins this November, or they might even have their opinions influence the composition of a future Republican House majority.
The post-primary campaign has, for some, involved a significant rebranding effort. Gibbs’ controversial writings were published more than 20 years ago, in several cases.
“People should now pay attention to me. Look at the facts. Take a look at my campaign and personnel. Look at my mom and my videos,” Gibbs remarked, pointing to his television commercial in which his mother extols his modesty and forthrightness. Voters will “soon discover that things that have been thrown out there are not true,” he claimed, at that point.
They’re attempting to portray themselves as evil people by using something that was stated X number of years ago, he continued.
The district that Gerald Ford once held as a bulwark for the GOP is now one of the best in the nation for Democrats to pick up seats. In 2020, Vice President Joe Biden won it by a margin of about 9 points. A victory would be a chance for House Democrats’ campaign to redeem itself after receiving harsh criticism for interfering in the Republican primary to favour incumbent Rep. Peter Meijer over election sceptic Gibbs. Meijer defied his party to accept the validity of the 2020 election and voted to impeach Trump in 2021.
Gibbs has one of the largest online records among GOP candidates, which Democratic rival Hillary Scholten and her backers have used to their advantage. They further claim that he supported a plan to abolish Social Security and opposed abortion rights, including in circumstances of rape or incest (which Gibbs denies).
National Republicans continue to run TV advertising supporting Gibbs in the hopes that voters will look over his inflammatory remarks in the midst of their dissatisfaction with the state of the economy. Scholten, an immigration lawyer, has massively outraised him, according to internal polls from both parties, which shows Democrats have an advantage.
He is simply an extreme example of what has happened to the Republican party. He’s an extreme example of it,” said Democratic Rep. Dan Kildee, who represents Flint, Mich. “Some of his past positions that he’s now trying to get himself away from don’t fit in the 21st century, let alone the 20th century in America.”
As he pitches for swing voters, Gibbs has adopted a distinctly different tone. After staking a primary bid on fealty to Donald Trump, he now stresses that the race should not be a referendum on the former president: “He’s not on the ballot. I’m a candidate.
He still believes the 2020 election result is “mathematically impossible” but now focuses more on rising costs, mentioning gas prices some 20 times in an interview this month in his campaign office. Another 10 comments were made of grocery bills.
And as Scholten and her allies point voters toward sexist diatribes that Gibbs wrote two decades ago in college, he has deployed his mom in a TV ad and on the campaign trail.
“We just wanted to show that side of me and show a fun quirky side,” he said. “People love that. Everywhere I go with my mom. I mean, everywhere when she’s here, people come up and say, ‘Oh I love your ad.’”
His mother has been a formidable presence on the campaign trail. Walking across a field of tailgaters shortly before Grand Valley State University’s homecoming football game this month, Gibbs and mother were greeted warmly by several people who had seen the ad. A half-dozen groups stopped to pose for pictures.
Gibbs, wearing his campaign t-shirt over a button-down, politely recited his resume to students and alumni and told them he would be laser-focused on lowering prices. His mother gently goaded them to “vote John Gibbs”.
Democrats are concerned by what they see as a pivot by Gibbs, and they warn that he is an extremist masquerading as a common-sense candidate to dupe voters.
“There is an overwhelming mission to roll back women’s rights and reproductive rights,” Scholten said this month while knocking doors in Grand Rapids. “I am not an alarmist by nature, but if we don’t wake up and take their word, we are going to be in a truly dangerous situation in very short order.”
And, with Gibbs, Democrats say they are pointing to a pattern. He has left a trail of commentary on all corners of the Internet, especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Some have been odd but benign, even amusing. In one online forum in 1998, Gibbs asked if the city of Atlantis “could be burried (sic) underneath the North Polar ice cap” and floated the possibility that it might been “a dominant root culture” that influenced Egyptians, South Americans and South Asian civilizations.
Other musings have caused greater offense.
His nomination to lead the Office of Personnel Management was derailed in 2020 after conspiratorial tweets he wrote years earlier resurfaced. Gibbs referenced a debunked conspiracy that claimed Democratic strategist John Podesta took part in a Satanic ritual, using the hashtag #SpiritCooking.
Several weeks after Gibbs beat Meijer, the scion of a Midwest grocery dynasty, in an August primary, CNN revealed revealed Gibbs founded a “think tank” while at Stanford that suggested women did not “posess (sic) the characteristics necessary to govern” and that the United States had “suffered” after the 19th Amendment. A Democratic super PAC seized on it, airing a TV ad featuring young women reading Gibbs’ direct quotes.