‘Necroposting’: Tweet from Dead House Democrat Deleted After Loud Bipartisan Backlash
Jacquelyn Martin/AP photo
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) passed away in May, but that didn’t stop him from tweeting an endorsement for his chosen successor, even though many people found it to be ghoulish and in poor taste.
Connolly died on May 21 about a month after announcing that his esophageal cancer had returned and he would not seek re-election. He was 75 and had represented Virginia’s 11th congressional district since 2009.
Last December, Connolly had defeated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to become the Democratic ranking member on the powerful House Oversight Committee. The moderate Connolly’s victory over the younger and more progressive Ocasio-Cortez frustrated some Democrats eager to pass the torch to a new generation.
Connolly’s death exacerbated such frustrations, as he was the third House Democrat to pass just this year after Reps. Sylvester Turner (D-TX) and Raúl Grivalja (D-AZ) died in March at ages 70 and 77, respectively, and the eighth Democrat in the House or Senate to die in office since November 2022. These vacant Democratic seats have added a little more of a buffer to Republicans’ narrow majority, making it easier for them to pass bills even if one or two GOP holdouts vote no.
Two weeks before he died, Connolly tweeted an endorsement for his chief of staff, James Walkinshaw, who had thrown his hat in the ring to run for Connolly’s seat.
After Connolly’s death, his social media profiles were updated to note that he had passed and now posts were being “made with the consent of the Connolly family.”
Screenshot via X.
The first posthumous tweet the account posted was on June 24. At some point on the afternoon of June 26, the tweet was deleted.
“Early voting starts TODAY in VA-11! Before passing, Gerry endorsed [Walkinshaw] to carry the torch,” the tweet read, urging voters to “honor that legacy and vote for bold leadership that’ll fight for us every day,” along with a link to Walkinshaw’s campaign website.
As of 4:45 pm ET Thursday, a virtually identical post still remained on Connolly’s Facebook page, which notably did not include any obvious notifications that the congressman had departed for the great beyond.
The Facebook post did not get as many interactions as the tweet, and that may be why it has not been deleted, but just in case, a screenshot is below.
Screenshot via Facebook.
The Walkinshaw promotion — which one critic dubbed “necroposting” — swiftly drew strong reactions from Connolly’s followers. Ken Klippenstein replied with a gif from the music video to “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, in which the pop star is made up to look like a zombie dancing in a graveyard.
Democratic operative Kamran Fareedi denounced the tweet as “beyond emailing on the late-Rep. Connolly’s behalf after he passed away,” and shared his June 6 tweet of a screenshot of a fundraising email he had deemed “beyond unethical.”
Several supporters of Walkinshaw’s primary opponents Irene Shin and Stella Pekarsky bashed the tweet as “just really gross,” accusing him of “exploit[ing] access” to his deceased former boss’ social media for his “own political gain.”
Many other social media users found the Connolly account’s “endorsements beyond the grave” shocking, “grotesque,” and “creepy.” A sampling of responses:
This article has been updated with additional information.
