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5 Things To Know: Cal Cunningham Caught Sending Cringey Sexts

...and four more stories from Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2020

Cal Cunningham
Cal Cunningham (Photo by Grayson Barrette)

Cunningham Admits to Sending Flirtatious Texts, Tillis Catches COVID

The North Carolina race for U.S. Senate got a little crazy on Friday night, as within hours voters learned something about each candidate: that current U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis had tested positive for COVID-19 and challenger Cal Cunningham admitted to sending “sexts” to a woman who wasn’t his wife — though they could be called “kexts,” as they were mostly about kissing. 

Just before 11:30 p.m. on Friday, the News & Observer reported that Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham had confirmed reports from right-wing website NationalFile.com that he had sent sexual texts to a woman who was not his wife. The texts, seen below, seem to imply that Cunningham and the woman have met up for at least one rendezvous in the past, and show the woman asking Cunningham to “make up an excuse for the fam, ditch a staffer … and be ready to kiss a lot.” Cal Cunningham is married with two children. 

A conversation between Cal Cunningham (in the grey boxes) and an unidentified woman.

In one text, Cal Cunningham says he’s “nervous about the next 100 days,” which would seem to date the conversation to July. Cunningham’s reps told News & Observer that he has no plans to leave the race. On Twitter on Saturday morning, Sunshine Media Network founder Jennifer Moxley pointed out that many people had promised to make donations to Cunningham in a Twitter thread that helped break the news. She speculated that the controversy may only highlight hypocrisy in the GOP camp. 

“Republicans pushed the public’s threshold for ‘inappropriate’ so high it seems hard for them to try to use moral standards against someone now,” Moxley wrote.
 

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