In a now deleted tweet, a “parody” Twitter account that largely attacks Democratic candidates and politicians posted a screenshot pulled from the account of Jared Polis, the current governor of Colorado and Democratic incumbent. The bottom of the screenshot contained the avatar from the account that viewed the tweet, which is a photo of Polis’ GOP rival for the Governorship, Heidi Ganahl, seemingly suggesting that the account is run by Ganahl.
The tweet was posted to the @News9mm account, a self described “Parody of activist 9News Denver. Killing it to get you the fake news you crave! Hypocrisy and arrogance open the door for satire.” The account, which has fewer than 1,000 followers as of this writing, tweets out sub-par messages about Colorado politics, vaccines, ivermectin, and national Democrats. Immediately after that, the News9mm account began tweeting defenses of Ganahl and began fighting with Kyle Clark, a journalist with 9News Denver who originally noted the seeming inadvertent self-doxing. “Just a heads up that it appears you were still logged in as @heidiganahl when you took the screenshot to post with this burner account,” Kyle Clark, a journalist with 9News Denver, the organization 9mm News is parodying, said on Twitter.
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Monday, the account Tweeted out a screenshot from Polis’ account that showed him taking his kids through a corn maze in Thorton, Colorado. In one of the photos, one of Polis’ kids is wearing a mask. “VAX MANDATE DOG WHISTLE,” the 9mm News parody account said above the photos of Polis escorting his kids through a corn maze and holding pumpkins. “In an apparent nod to the Democrat base advocating for new vaccine mandates for kids, Jared Polis masks his son in an outdoor setting even though kids have lowest risk of Covid, which has a 99%+ survival rate.”The screenshot of Polis’ account includes a reply from a follower and the avatar of the account that took the screenshot. The avatar is a headshot of Ganahl, indicating that the account that took the screenshot is either Ganahl or someone using her headshot as their Twitter avatar. Motherboard could not find another account using the same photo as their avatar. The Heidi Ganahl campaign did not immediately return Motherboard’s request for comment, but soon after people on Twitter began pointing out that Ganahl was seemingly running the account, the tweet was deleted.
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The 9mm News parody account responded to Clark on Twitter. “Now that Kyle Clark has decided to pay attention to a parody account, we ask why 9mm News decided to selectively edit this interview and hide significant elements of her plan,” it said above a video from an 9News interview with Ganahl.
The race between Ganahl and Polis, like many of the midterm races in America this year, is a contentious one. Ganahl has said “there was probably some shady stuff going on” regarding President Biden’s victory in 2020 and became politically active after getting offended by a play about a raven at an elementary school. As a University of Colorado regent she voted in favor of a resolution that would overturn the school’s current Covid vaccine mandate.