Democrat Susanna Gibson's bid to win a seat in Virginia's House of Delegates has failed.
Fox News reports that Gibson has "narrowly lost" to her opponent, Republican David Owen, in the race for Virginia's 57th House district.
This district, which includes parts of Henrico and Goochland counties, is one of the state's most competitive. Gibson only ended up losing by less than 1,000 votes. The final tally was Owen: 17,878; Gibson: 16,912.
This close margin is despite the fact that Gibson's campaign faced an online sex scandal.
Gibson is a 40-year-old mother of two and a nurse practitioner. The chances are, however, that, if you are reading this article and if you are familiar with Gibson, it is not because of this or her politics. Rather, it is likely because of the reports about her online sex scandal.
In September, the Washington Post published a report in which it revealed that Gibson posted videos on the adult website Chaturbate.
Per the outlet:
A Democrat running for a crucial seat in Virginia's House of Delegates performed sex acts with her husband for a live online audience and encouraged viewers to pay them with "tips" for specific requests, according to online videos viewed by The Washington Post.
There were more than a dozen videos of this nature in total. It also turns out that Gibson uploaded at least one photograph of herself to her Chaturbate profile after she announced her campaign, in July 2022.
After Gibson declared her political candidacy, the videos, in September 2022, were posted to Recurbate's archive, which is publicly accessible.
Gibson was quick to blame the situation on Virginia Republicans.
She called the revelation "an illegal invasion" of her privacy, saying that it was "designed to humiliate me and my family."
Gibson said:
It won’t intimidate me, and it won’t silence me. My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up. My opponent and his allies know that the people of this district are on our side on the issues, so they’re stooping to the worst gutter politics. There’s too much at stake in this election and I’ll never stop fighting for our community.
It is unclear whether or not Virginia Republicans were really behind the revelation. Owen, himself, has denied any involvement.
But, there is no doubt that the Virginia GOP attempted to use the revelation to their advantage, as they sent voters screenshots of Gibson's online sexual activities.
