Alleged QAnon Mastermind Cancels Congressional Campaign

Ron Watkins, the alleged mastermind behind the QAnon conspiracy, has shut down his campaign for an Arizona congressional seat. Watkins was running as a Republican and announced the termination of his campaign to the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.

QAnon is as much a part of Republican politics as logical fallacies are, but the conspiracy theory’s stranglehold on democracy appears to have withered away just a teensy bit. Ron Watkins, who some speculate is the “Q” in QAnon, has announced the closure of his Arizona congressional campaign following his defeat in his district’s primary in August. Q is the anonymous figure leaving cryptic messages on online forums that point to a shadowy cohort of Satanists within our government who are allegedly sexually abusing children. Watkins has previously claimed that he is not the man behind Q, which is exactly something Q might say.

“I am not Q,” Watkins said to the New York Times earlier this year. The outlet alleges that Watkins began writing as Q in 2018 in their analysis with forensic linguists.

Watkins’ congressional campaign ends with a whimper, not with a scream as he secured a mere 3.8% of votes (2,999 out of 79,116) during the Republican primary election for Arizona’s U.S. House District 2 this past summer. This is not completely a surprise, as Watkins opted to do some major campaigning on the instant messaging platform Telegram given his failure to raise any substantial amount of campaign finances.

Likewise, the campaign faced a bumpy road in its brief life as Watkins’ team failed to disclose where a whopping $20,626.15 of his campaign finances came from, as written in a March letter from the Federal Election Commission. Forbes, however, reports that Watkins’ campaign remained active though this week, despite running out of money as of September 30.

Ron Watkins, the alleged mastermind behind the QAnon conspiracy, has shut down his campaign for an Arizona congressional seat. Watkins was running as a Republican and announced the termination of his campaign to the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.

QAnon is as much a part of Republican politics as logical fallacies are, but the conspiracy theory’s stranglehold on democracy appears to have withered away just a teensy bit. Ron Watkins, who some speculate is the “Q” in QAnon, has announced the closure of his Arizona congressional campaign following his defeat in his district’s primary in August. Q is the anonymous figure leaving cryptic messages on online forums that point to a shadowy cohort of Satanists within our government who are allegedly sexually abusing children. Watkins has previously claimed that he is not the man behind Q, which is exactly something Q might say.

“I am not Q,” Watkins said to the New York Times earlier this year. The outlet alleges that Watkins began writing as Q in 2018 in their analysis with forensic linguists.

Watkins’ congressional campaign ends with a whimper, not with a scream as he secured a mere 3.8% of votes (2,999 out of 79,116) during the Republican primary election for Arizona’s U.S. House District 2 this past summer. This is not completely a surprise, as Watkins opted to do some major campaigning on the instant messaging platform Telegram given his failure to raise any substantial amount of campaign finances.

Likewise, the campaign faced a bumpy road in its brief life as Watkins’ team failed to disclose where a whopping $20,626.15 of his campaign finances came from, as written in a March letter from the Federal Election Commission. Forbes, however, reports that Watkins’ campaign remained active though this week, despite running out of money as of September 30.