An Oklahoma Democratic congressional candidate ended her campaign in the wake of the scandal surrounding her drunken behavior at a slumber party where she verbally abused pre-teen girls.
Abby Broyles on Thursday announced the end of her campaign in a statement that declares ignorance of her alleged behavior at the party and deflects blame onto the parents of the girls in attendance.
Broyles, who was running in Oklahoma's Fifth Congressional District, earned national infamy last month when reports broke that she railed at children while heavily intoxicated at a sleepover to which she was invited. According to accounts from mothers at the party, Broyles made one girl cry when she called her an "acne fucker," called another a "Hispanic fucker," and called a third girl a "judgy fucker." She also reportedly vomited into a laundry basket and onto one girl's shoes.
"Unfortunately it really was as bad as it sounds," the host of the party told the mother of one of the girls. "She went from zonked out to attacking kids."
A mother of one of the girls called out Broyles in a Twitter thread describing her behavior and faulting her for not apologizing.
In Broyles's statement suspending her campaign, she attacked the women who brought the allegations against her to light. She criticized one mother "who wasn't there" for detailing her behavior on Twitter and insisted that any "alleged hurtful comments" she made were "under duress." She described the host of the party as a "now former friend" who "conveniently threw me under a bus to superficially avoid further interrogation from her ex-husband during their custody battle."
Broyles's initial reaction to the story going public was to lie, saying she never attended the party, was out of town at the time, and did not know the women accusing her. She threatened to sue the outlet reporting on the claims and insisted the scandal was a political attack.
But within days she changed her tune in an apology interview. She admitted she was in fact at the slumber party, claiming she mixed alcohol with medication and had no memory of her behavior that night. She also falsely claimed that she never said she wasn't at the party. In a follow-up statement, she admitted that she did lie when a call from a reporter "caught her off guard."
Broyles was the Democratic Senate candidate in Oklahoma in the 2020 election, which she lost to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R.) by 30 points.