Opinion | Who put these oddballs on the ballot? Could it be … Satan?
GOP conspiracy theorist Michele Morrow is in a dead heat to become North Carolina’s top educator.


Michele Morrow, the GOP candidate for North Carolina superintendent, during a debate at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., on Sept. 24. (Scott Davis/The Daily Reflector/AP)

By Dana Milbank
October 4, 2024 at 7:30 a.m. EDT

As if the good people of North Carolina haven’t suffered enough lately, they also have to worry about this: a network of child traffickers and pedophiles that tortures and kills children to harvest their blood for an anti-aging elixir known as adrenochrome. … Or so believes the Republican candidate to be the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Michele Morrow.

“The evil, demon-possessed people who worship Satan have been using this to try to keep their youth,” Morrow said in a video she posted on Facebook in 2020. “They’ve been using it as a drug that is more powerful than street drugs. … It is gotten through children who are being tortured and know that they are about to die. Guys, this is deep, it is evil, and it is real. It is truly happening, and we have got to stop it.” Among those she has identified as adrenochrome users is the actor Jim Carrey.

And this is not the only shocking discovery made by Morrow. Just a couple of weeks ago, she informed the public that the plus sign in LGBTQ+ “includes PEDOPH*L*A!!”

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It’s a story often told, from coast to coast: Republican primaries bring out the far-right faithful, who reward the most extreme candidate in the race. Then party loyalty kicks in, and ordinary Republican voters rally behind the nominee, no matter how exotic. In Morrow’s case, she won the primary with 457,000 votes — or about 20 percent of the state’s registered Republicans. She beat the incumbent, a normal Republican, by 37,000 votes. Now millions may vote for her, simply because she’s the Republican nominee.

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Opinion by Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank is an opinion columnist for The Washington Post. He sketches the foolish, the fallacious and the felonious in politics. His latest book, "Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theories and Dunces who Burned Down the House" (Little, Brown) is out September 24. follow on X @Milbank