Michigan Democrat William Lawrence has removed hundreds of past social-media posts in which he appeared to endorse some of the left’s most sweeping proposals, including abolishing police departments and prisons, eliminating border restrictions and dismantling the U.S. Senate.
At 36, Lawrence is now the Democratic nominee in one of the nation’s most closely watched House contests. He will challenge Republican Representative Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District.
A CNN KFile investigation published Friday identified a large collection of the deleted material, much of it posted from an earlier X account. The messages date to 2020, when Lawrence was establishing himself as a progressive activist and organizer.
One deleted post, published in 2021, praised Minneapolis-based activist organization Black Visions and its push to defund the police.
Lawrence wrote that the campaign had moved the United States “nearer to a world without police and prisons.”
According to CNN, he also advocated the “forced nationalization” of fossil-fuel companies as a means of ending their operations.
In another post, Lawrence urged people to imagine “a world of free and open migration.” When asked whether that would mean anyone could move anywhere, he responded emphatically: “Yes!”
He also argued that the Senate should be abolished and called for a “fundamental overhaul” of the Constitution.
Michigan Democrat William Lawrence is running in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, where deleted posts have resurfaced showing him calling to “abolish the Senate” and demanding a “fundamental overhaul” of the Constitution.
In a statement to Our News Outlet, Lawrence also criticized Barrett, saying: “Unlike Tom Barrett, I don’t avoid tough questions about my record and what I stand for.”
In December 2021, Lawrence shared lyrics aimed at older Democrats over Senator Joe Manchin’s opposition to parts of the party’s climate agenda. “Our generation says fk you for everything,” he wrote, adding: “Hurry up and die so that we can get started.”
Lawrence now says his views have changed and that he no longer supports some of the positions expressed in those posts.
“Like many millennials, I’ve done my fair share of thinking out loud on the internet,” he said in a statement to Our News Outlet. “I’ve been clear that I disagree today with some things I posted in the past. I don’t support defunding the police or open borders.”
Some of Lawrence’s most heated comments, however, were aimed at members of his own party.
After former Representative Abigail Spanberger criticized the “defund the police” movement following the 2020 election, Lawrence accused moderate Democrats of throwing a “tantrum.” He also said “timid Dems” should leave the party if they could not accept the activist wing of the movement.
In a separate post, he urged Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a primary, writing: “It’s time for the Dem civil war to rage.”
Lawrence also attacked Michigan Democrat Elissa Slotkin, saying he was “ashamed to be represented” by her and referring to her as a “supposed Democrat.”
In his statement, Lawrence said he no longer stood by his comments about Slotkin. He now described her as “fiercely critical” of the Trump administration’s war in Iran and said she was doing “essential work to protect the integrity of the upcoming election.”
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He said he remains “a staunch critic of the political status quo, and the obscene concentration of wealth and power that corrupts our politics and leaves working people unrepresented.”
His old posts also addressed issues outside the usual political debate.
In 2022, Lawrence criticized the traditional family structure, describing the nuclear-family household as an “isolating, individualistic, violent way of organizing society.”
That same period also saw him direct harsh language at older Democrats over Senator Joe Manchin’s resistance to parts of the party’s climate platform.
“Our generation says fk you for everything,” Lawrence wrote in December 2021. He then added: “Hurry up and die so that we can get started.”
The resurfaced comments have drawn particular attention because of Lawrence’s current campaign in Michigan’s 7th District, a politically competitive seat that Donald Trump won by fewer than two percentage points in 2024.
Lawrence’s campaign maintains that the views he expressed online as a progressive organizer no longer reflect his political platform.
“These stances that Will took online as an organizer years ago are out of step with what he believes and is running on today.”
Lawrence addressed the controversy himself in an X post on Friday. He accused billionaire-backed Super PACs of funding attack ads and “dredging up old tweets that I deleted because I didn’t agree with them anymore.”
“As most millennials, I’ve spent my fair share of time thinking out loud on the internet,” he wrote, adding that he had been “fiercely critical of BOTH parties.”
“I’ve said some dumb things,” Lawrence acknowledged.
He then highlighted the differences between his past online statements and his current record, writing: “Unlike Tom Barrett, I’ve never voted to cut families’ health care. I’ve never voted for a senseless war. I’ve never voted to give tax breaks to data center developers. And I’ve never taken money from a corporation profiting from all of this.”
“I don’t take orders from billionaires or party bosses,” he continued. “That’s why these billionaires are going all out to try to defeat me.”
In his statement to Our News Outlet, Lawrence similarly turned his attention to Barrett, saying: “Unlike Tom Barrett, I don’t avoid tough questions about my record and what I stand for.”
He accused Barrett of refusing to answer constituents who are “paying more for healthcare to fund billionaire tax breaks” and “paying more for gas and groceries because he backed Trump’s reckless war in Iran.”
Lawrence won the Democratic primary in August and will face Barrett in November. The contest could play a role in determining which party controls the House of Representatives.
The Daily Mail contacted Barrett’s campaign for comment.
