The Kansas teenager who secured the Democratic nomination for a seat in the state House said he will remain in the race after previously saying he was going to withdraw.
Aaron Coleman, 19, barely won his primary against seven-year incumbent Stan Frownfelter to represent the Democratic Party for the 37th Congressional District seat, after he admitted bullying female peers online, committing blackmail, and creating revenge porn while in middle school.
Coleman announced on Sunday that he plans to withdraw from the race to “focus on taking care of my family & surviving the COVID Great Depression,” but changed his mind, according to a statement released on Tuesday.
He said that withdrawing from the race “would immediately return to power the same corporatist, out-of-touch 7-term incumbent that voters just rejected.”
Coleman has also apologized for his behavior toward women.
“I do apologize to them from a place of remorse and shame, but words alone are not an acceptable response today,” Coleman said at the time. “We need to provide safety to women in this society, which we do not currently do. I believe that we have a moral obligation to provide a life of dignity to our citizens, and, I think, that with more self-respect, I would have been a better person to those women in middle school.”
A name can only be removed from the ballot if the nominee or a member of their family experiences severe medical hardship or if the candidate moved out of state or died, according to state law. Coleman will have to file a petition with the state’s secretary of state before the beginning of next month with a reason behind it. If the petition is granted, the party will have a chance to pick a replacement.
The Democrats could nominate Frownfelter, who only lost the primary contest by 14 votes. He said that he planned on running as a write-in candidate. Although no Republican filed to run for the district, Kristina Smith, a Republican, is now also pursuing a write-in campaign.
UPDATE: The headline and body of the story have been updated since Coleman changed his mind and said he will remain on the ballot after saying he was going to drop out of the race.
