OOPS!

GOP Candidate Accidentally Posts Brutal Verdict on Trump

A Republican hoping to win a hard-fought House seat left an embarrassing instruction on his website.

A Republican congressional candidate has revealed an extraordinary strategy for dealing with Donald Trump’s unpopularity—to pretend he doesn’t exist.

Eric Pratt, 62, who is fighting to win a closely contested House seat in Minnesota and has previously been accused by his rival of being “scared of Daddy Trump,” published a brutal assessment of the widely hated president on his campaign website in what appeared to be an AI blunder.

“The President is not popular, so all messaging should be focused on local politics and needs,” read the remarkable admission on his official campaign website.

The sentence appeared in the middle of a section titled “Pratt Playbook,” immediately after a paragraph setting out the candidate’s priorities.

An X user spotted the apparent mishap and gleefully shared a screenshot Tuesday.

The post speculated that the campaign used artificial intelligence to create its policy platform, then accidentally published an instruction along with the finished website copy.

The offending passage has since disappeared and reads only, “Residents want everyday purchases to be affordable, bad actors to be held accountable, and for their reps to lead with common sense,” with no mention of Trump anywhere on the page.

Pratt has been approached for comment.

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The embarrassing slip comes at a tricky moment for Pratt, a Minnesota state senator and former banking exec running for the congressional seat vacated by Democrat Angie Craig.

Craig, who has represented Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District since 2019, gave up her re-election bid for an unsuccessful Senate campaign.

Pratt, who has served in the state Senate since 2013, now faces Democrat Matt Little, 41—a former state senator and mayor of Lakeville—in the Nov. 3 election.

The suburban-rural district has historically been competitive but has become increasingly favorable to Democrats.

Aware of how unpopular Trump is in the Twin Cities, Little has already sought to connect his opponent to the president. During one campaign appearance in September, he accused Pratt of being “scared of Daddy Trump.”

Pratt responded: “Matt Little is running against Donald Trump, and I’m really running to represent the people of the 2nd District.”

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The apparent online flub comes as Republican candidates desperately try to distance themselves from their party’s leader before next month’s midterms.

A Reuters investigation this month found that candidates in 41 of 62 competitive congressional races had broken with Trump on policy or played down connections to him.

Several GOP congressional hopefuls have quietly removed references to Trump from their campaign websites.

Texas Republican Carlos De La Cruz replaced a description of himself as a “Trump Conservative” with “Proven Conservative.” Florida candidate Mike Beltran removed language about standing alongside the president. And Mike Bouchard also removed a prominent reference to Trump’s endorsement from his Michigan campaign homepage.

PANIC STATIONS

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The Daily Beast has also contacted Little, the White House, and the Republican National Committee for comment.

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