CENTRALIA — A Twitter account claiming to be state Rep. Joel McEntire, R-Cathlamet, has been calling users of the platform various demeaning words, including “straight up loser,” “dim wit dem,” “lazy” and “utterly pathetic.”
While he initially said on his Facebook page that screenshots of the posts were “photoshopped,” the state representative this week told The Chronicle the account is, in fact, his.
But, he’s not the one running it.
“I started this Twitter page a few months ago but handed it off to a kid from Vancouver to use,” McEntire wrote in an email.
McEntire has promoted the Twitter account — which has multiple times assured people it is run by the representative himself — on his Facebook page.
He said the account was meant as an “election tool” against Cara Cusack, the Democratic candidate who he beat in 2022 in a nearly 60% to 40% split.
“He is trying to generate support for Cara Cusack for me. If Democrats around the region support her early, since she has already declared she is running, it lowers the chances of a strong candidate jumping in the race in 2024,” McEntire wrote, later adding, “I don’t much care what he says or does on it.”
One woman in particular, a Grays Harbor County resident who asked that her name be kept out of this report, has received much of the account’s attention.
Tweets have said “I am not surprised you are single,” “You are so slow it hurts,” and has been asked “Don’t you have children to raise?”
She has repeatedly asked the account to stop interacting with her, but it hasn’t.
Cusack wrote on Twitter, “I don’t know if this is actually Joel, but he may as well be since I hear he is promoting the account on Facebook.”
Asked whether McEntire sanctioning the account is a violation of any legislative code of conduct, J.T. Wilcox, House Minority Leader said “others are free to manage their communications in a manner” that best suits them and their style.
“This is the first time I’ve seen any of these tweets,” Wilcox said. “I personally control all of my social media accounts.”
