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Several scandals have followed Scott Presler throughout his career, including his support of debunked conspiracy theories such as QAnon and 2020 election denial.
There's a reason Scott Presler will never be the Republican Party's darling.
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The out gay conservative has made headlines recently for supposedly being a force to reckon within the GOP, claiming credit for flipping Pennsylvania from blue to red between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections — and promising to do the same to New Jersey. But Presler's track record is far from perfect.
While some prominent Republicans have praised his work, the extremist has continuously failed to receive support from GOP institutions due to the scandals that have followed him throughout his career, including his support of debunked conspiracy theories such as QAnon and 2020 election denial, as well as a sex scandal in that seemingly irreparably damaged his reputation.
Presler, the co-founder and chair of Gays for Trump, first began making headlines in 2017 when he coordinated the Islamophobic "March Against Sharia" on behalf of ACT for America, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designates an anti-Muslim hate group. He again drew attention later in 2021 when he was seen at the insurrection riots on January 6, 2021, though he did not enter the Capitol.
Presler worked as a Republican Party of Virginia operative until the party suddenly cut ties in August 2016, when he was accused of engaging in sexual activity inside a Virginia Beach RNC office — and posting explicit pictures of the encounter on Craigslist, Politico reported at the time.
Presler's repeated challenging of sitting Republican officials seems to have created a rift between himself and the party as a whole. He previously campaigned for John Gibbs over sitting Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer in a Republican primary, helping Gibbs to win the primary, but ultimately losing the election to a Democrat. Many speculated that Meijer most likely would have kept the seat and directly blamed Presler for the loss, with one GOP commentator stating: "Presler is committed to ousting Republicans in primaries."
A Republican Committee in upstate New York was also condemned by Democrats and Republicans alike for inviting Presler to speak at an August 2021 voter registration event. House Representative Elise Stefanik received blow-back for promoting his appearance on Twitter with a post she soon after deleted, Media Matters documented, and Presler's appearance was canceled.
Stefanik's critics took issue with Presler's support of the QAnon conspiracy theory. He had used the “QAnon” tag in at least 54 Instagram posts by mid-2021, according to Media Matters, as well as another QAnon-related tag in 29 other posts. While the reason given for cancellation was that a staff member had contracted COVID-19, two other appearances of Presler's were subsequently canceled.
Presler later butted heads with the Republican National Committee after he published committee members’ email addresses and Twitter accounts online in an effort to prevent the re-election of incumbent chair Ronna McDaniel in 2023. Many soured on Presler after being bombarded with messages, The New York Times reported, and challenger Harmeet Dhillon was sharply criticized by other Republicans for her proposal to offer him a job if elected.
Presler's activism efforts today do not sit right with other conservatives, as they revolve around encouraging voter registration and mail-in ballots — which were the center of Republicans' false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Presler himself has drawn ire for encouraging legal ballot harvesting, saying at a voter training session in February 2023: “My argument is that each of us can become a mule. I don’t want 2,000 mules. I want 2 million mules."
When Lara Trump praised Presler's efforts in March and suggested bringing him onto "our legal ballot harvesting division," his 2016 sex scandal once again began receiving media attention. The RNC quickly released a statement to NBCsaying that it would not hire Presler as he “remains focused on his nonprofit" — despite Presler directly and publicly responding to Trump's suggestion with excitement.
Presler has seemingly already felt the sting of his colleagues' rejection. The conservative, who has taken credit for helping to secure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' 2022 election and later supported his restrictive "Don't Say Gay" education law by saying "anyone who thinks children should be learning about sex shouldn’t be around children," would later respond to a post from DeSantis' campaign mocking LGBTQ+ Pride month by asking: "How do you feel about me?"
The answer should be obvious by now.
