By A Democratic campaign for the North Carolina House has been upended after party leaders withdrew their support for Shelly Headen, an Oak Ridge accountant whose social media history includes calls for violence against conservatives and supporters of President Donald Trump.
Headen is challenging Republican state Rep. John Blust in a competitive Guilford County district. The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus announced its decision within hours of receiving questions from The Assembly about Headen’s online activity.
“Shelly Headen’s posts are unacceptable and do not reflect the values we expect of our candidates,” caucus communications director Sam Lozier said in a statement. “The North Carolina House Democratic Caucus condemns these comments without qualification and will not support Shelly Headen’s candidacy.”
Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, did not respond to a request for comment.
Headen’s posts appeared across several social media platforms. After Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, an account attributed to Headen wrote on X: “I’m so excited! Ready for the MAGAs to die off!!” Headen denied owning the account, although the House Democratic Caucus had linked to it earlier this year.
On LinkedIn, Headen compared Trump and his supporters to Nazi Germany. She wrote that “the damage [Trump] has done is getting close to surpassing Hilter [sic]. In addition, I think his MAGA cult may be more destructive and evil than the Nazis.”
🚨Just in: Shelly Headen, the North Carolina Democrat for the 62nd House District was pictured at the Dachau Concentration Camp with the caption “Concentration: Camp in Germany This is where Trump supporters belong.” pic.twitter.com/b19dWejylV
— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) September 11, 2026
Other comments appeared in an anti-Trump Facebook group. When a post asked why some people fail to understand world events, Headen responded, “Maybe they need to experience sexual assault so they can experience what Trump’s victims feel.”
Headen also commented on a post praising the man who pleaded guilty to the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “I think America is beyond peaceful protest!” she wrote.
The comment connects Headen to a troubling change in the way parts of the American left discuss political violence. Thompson’s killer, Luigi Mangione, became a folk hero in liberal corners of the internet, where his image has been turned into merchandise, memes and a symbol of resistance against corporations. Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren initially responded to the killing by emphasizing public anger at the health-insurance industry, helping shift attention from the murder itself to possible justifications for it.
New Conservative Post recently documented how Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lexi Alexander invoked Mangione after the unrelated stabbing death of a Bank of America executive and new mother. The episode illustrated how quickly killing can be transformed into political imagery—and how readily some liberals now treat violence against disfavored institutions or people as a joke, an aesthetic or a legitimate form of protest.
That attitude is no longer confined to anonymous accounts. A 2025 report from the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab warned that online far-left communities had developed an emerging assassination culture. Its survey found that 55.2 percent of left-of-center respondents considered the murder of Trump at least somewhat justified, while nearly 49 percent said the same about killing Elon Musk. The researchers found violent attitudes among Republicans as well, but significantly greater support among respondents on the left.
The North Carolina House Republican Caucus drew further attention to Headen’s posts Thursday by sharing a Facebook comment in which she appeared to call for a foreign attack against conservative states. “I think our only hope is an attack on US soil… preferably Alabama, Louisiana… where the stupid people live,” Headen wrote. House Speaker Destin Hall called the statement “absolutely disgusting.”
Headen said she paid a consulting firm $30,000 to examine her social media accounts but could not recall the language she had used.
“I can’t remember what I’ve posted,” she said. “I’ve been very vocal against MAGA.”
Asked about the post suggesting an attack on conservative states, Headen said she did not remember writing it and could not say whether it was authentic. The comment remained publicly visible on Facebook Thursday afternoon, according to The Assembly.
The episode resembles other cases in which Democratic candidates or activists have distanced themselves from violent rhetoric only after it attracted public scrutiny. In Wisconsin, a transgender activist who briefly volunteered for a Democratic Socialist congressional campaign appeared in a video beside a board encouraging viewers to kill Republicans. The activist also declared a campaign against MAGA supporters intended to make them afraid to walk through their communities. The campaign eventually removed the volunteer and condemned the threats after they became public, as NCP previously reported.
Anti-government demonstrations have also moved beyond inflammatory internet posts. Federal prosecutors described a July 2025 assault on the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas as an organized attack by an Antifa cell. Participants vandalized federal property and used fireworks to draw officers into the open before a responding police lieutenant was shot, according to prosecutors. The alleged leader later received a 100-year prison sentence, while other defendants received decades behind bars, according reporting.
The pattern does not mean that every liberal supports violence or that every crime committed by someone on the left is political terrorism. Democratic leaders were right to condemn Headen’s statements. But their response also raises a larger question: Why does denunciation so often come only after journalists or Republicans uncover the rhetoric?
Despite losing the caucus’s support, Headen said she intends to remain in the race.
“I’ve sacrificed myself just like Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, and Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln and all the people that put themselves out there to sacrifice for our country,” Headen said. “If a few angry moments on social media are the end, then so be it. MAGA will keep winning if we continue with not standing up for what’s right.”
Republicans have also highlighted two 2024 Guilford County police reports that listed Headen’s husband as a possible assault victim and identified her as a suspect. Headen responded in a statement portraying herself as the victim and declaring, “As a CPA, I believe in transparency and accountability.” She later deleted the statement from Facebook, though it remained on her campaign website.
“Unfortunately, Shelly Headen’s statement about the incidents where law enforcement were summoned to her home raises more questions than answers,” former Guilford County Sheriff B.J. Barnes said.
The controversy has complicated Democratic efforts in a district Blust carried by fewer than 7 percentage points in 2024. The seat could help determine control of the North Carolina House or whether Republicans regain the supermajority they lost in the last election.
Democrats have little recourse before November. The Aug. 20 deadline for candidates to withdraw has passed, and absentee ballots have already begun going to voters. Headen therefore cannot be replaced on the ballot. If she wins and declines to take office, however, Democratic Party leaders could select a successor.
Headen’s candidacy may now become a test of whether voters view her comments as a few regrettable online moments or as another example of a political culture that has increasingly learned to speak about conservatives not merely as opponents to defeat, but as enemies whose suffering and death can, and should, be imagined, celebrated or justified.
