Former Broward County Democratic primary congressional candidate Elijah Manley said he will surrender to the Broward Sheriff's Office over a violent social media post he authored.
Manley has run unsuccessfully for state house seats in Broward in 2020 and 2022, and most recently finished third in the Democratic primary for Florida's 20th congressional district.
Manley’s post in support of Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon encouraged people to vote for her. It then added: “Anybody not doing that, I promise you I’m going to cut your f— head off.”
Attached to the post was a Florida Politics article about a conservative watchdog group's federal complaint about discrepancies in Nixon’s financial disclosure filing. Nixon is running against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, who is leading in the latest polls.
Manley said he expects to face charges. In Florida, a written threat to kill is a second degree felony.
Manley called the situation a "serious first amendment issue" and indicated that he may pursue legal action.
"The President of the United States says worse," he said.
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In his failed bid this year for the Democratic nomination for Congress, Manly was a fierce critic of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz during the primary campaign.
During one candidates forum last June, Manley blasted the longtime congresswoman, who is white and Jewish, for running in what was a historically Black seat representing South Florida in Congress.
“ While the Republicans are trying their hardest to silence Black voices, I don't expect somebody in our own party, a white Democrat, to do the same,” he said. “ We are not going back to a time where there were no Black people in Congress.”
He earlier told Politico that Wasserman Schultz "is no different than the Republicans that are eviscerating Black representation across the South,”
“She is everything that’s wrong with the broken unpopular Democratic establishment. … I look forward to retiring her from public office permanently," he told the statewide media outlet.
Wasserman Schultz switched to the 20th CD from her 25th CD last summer when the Republican-led Florida Legislature and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis redrew the boundaries of the state's 28 congressional districts.
Republicans made the move — a strategy employed nationwide by the GOP — to add as many as four Florida Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives and bolster President Donald Trump's chances of keeping a slim majority control of Congress.
Wasserman Schultz's former district was redrawn to a favor a Republican representative.
Her decision to enter the historically Black district angered and disappointed many Black leaders. The district had been represented by a Black congressperson since the late Alcee Hastings first won the seat in 1993. The district is 42% Black.
