A Democratic candidate for Congress in Oklahoma has ended her campaign one month after she apologized for verbally abusing children attending a sleepover at a friend’s home.
The candidate, Abby Broyles, a former investigative television reporter who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2020, said she was ending her bid to represent Oklahoma’s Fifth Congressional District “to focus on myself and my happiness,” according to a Medium post published on Thursday.
In the essay, Ms. Broyles, 32, described how she “hit rock bottom” after the sleepover incident last month.
She described being in an emergency room on March 2, less than two weeks after the apology.
“I drank heavily in my hotel room, more than 1,300 miles away in an effort to hide and took sleeping pills, anguishing in pain reading about myself on social media and in tabloid articles,” she wrote.
Ms. Broyles also said she had “struggled with mental health issues including self-worth, severe anxiety and insomnia for about 20 years.”
Ms. Broyles, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday, has said that she has no memory of what happened during the Feb. 11 sleepover where she had mixed alcohol and sleep medication. About eight girls ages 12 and 13 attended the sleepover, where they watched the movie “Titanic,” according to NonDoc Media, a journalism nonprofit in Oklahoma.
When first contacted by NonDoc Media for comment, Ms. Broyles seemed to deny that she was at the party. After a TikTok video showed otherwise, she gave an interview to KFOR-TV, an Oklahoma City station where she once worked.
In the interview, Ms. Broyles said that she had “blacked out” after drinking wine and taking a sleeping medication. She said that her friend, who was hosting the sleepover, had given her medicine that she had never taken before.
After the sleepover episode made national headlines, Ms. Broyles said she had received death threats and had been harassed by online trolls. She also wrote that she had “lost support” from Democratic leaders. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which Ms. Broyles said “announced it was distancing itself” from her after the episode, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on Thursday.
“The news cycle was the longest nine days of my life,” she continued. “I didn’t even feel safe staying in my own home due to the threats I received.”
Alone in a hotel room this month, Ms. Broyles became overwhelmed with self-doubt, she said in the post. “Surrounded by empty wine and liquor bottles, I stared at the dark circles under my eyes in the bathroom mirror, and this time, I didn’t just tell myself I’m ‘not good enough,’” she wrote. “This time I told myself I was done.”
“I don’t remember what all I drank before I sent a couple suicidal texts to close friends and sent a tweet out that said, ‘You guys win. I’ll just kill myself,’” she continued. “I blacked out and woke up on a gurney.”
Ms. Broyles was seeking her party’s nomination in June to run against Representative Stephanie Bice, the Republican incumbent serving her first term. In 2020, Ms. Broyles ran to unseat Senator James Inhofe, a Republican.
Toward the end of her statement, Ms. Broyles said that she had checked into a rehabilitation center recently.
She said she was sharing her story “because I should’ve gotten help sooner, and if you’re suffering, please know, there is help. Unfortunately, I had to hit rock bottom to realize it.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
