What to Know
- Delaware State Rep. candidate Monique Johns apologized after she was caught on camera removing her opponent's campaign literature.
- The surveillance video shows Johns removing campaign literature from Rep. Kevin Hensley and replacing it with her own.
- “This was a lapse of judgment that I humbly regret. Please forgive me. I won't make any excuses for this action,” she wrote.
A Delaware state representative candidate apologized on Facebook Monday after she was caught on surveillance video removing her opponent’s campaign literature from outside a Middletown, Delaware, home and replacing it with her own.
“Today, I ask for the forgiveness of the residents of the 9th Representative District,” Monique Johns wrote. “I made a mistake. I removed the literature of my opponent's campaign from the door of a voter. It was wrong and I should never have done it.”
Johns, a Democrat, is running against State Rep. Kevin Hensley (R-District 9) in the race for Delaware’s 9th District. On Sunday Randy J. Smith, a Middletown, Delaware, resident posted surveillance videos on his Facebook page.
The first video showed Hensley outside Smith’s home placing a campaign pamphlet on his door. The second video shows Johns taking Hensley’s flier from the door and replacing it with her own pamphlet.
After the videos were posted, Erik Raser-Schramm, the chairman of the Delaware Democratic Party, released a statement condemning Johns’ actions.
“Without equivocation, we reject these tactics and call on Ms. Johns to join us in apologizing to Rep. Hensley and the voters of the 9th District, and to recommit herself to running the kind of campaign the Delaware Democratic Party demands from its candidates,” he wrote.
Johns later apologized as well.
“This was a lapse of judgment that I humbly regret. Please forgive me. I won't make any excuses for this action,” she wrote. “I have apologized to my opponent, my supporters, and now I apologize to the voters of the 9th Representative District.”
Smith told NBC’s Delaware affiliate WDEL he’s not very involved in politics and has never volunteered or worked on any political campaigns. He also said he didn’t plan to contact police about the incident though he did consider the removal of the campaign literature from his front door an invasion of privacy.
