Over a month after she became blackout drunk, threw up, and verbally berated pre-teen girls at a slumber party, as well as following some nearly tragic personal news, Abby Broyles has dropped out of the race in her run for Congress. She was running as a Democrat to challenge Rep. Stephanie Bice, a Republican who represents Oklahoma's 5th district.
Matt covered the incident last month, which occurred around Valentine's Day. Broyles, who suffers from anxiety and depression, had taken medication she said she's "never taken before," which led to quite the interaction after she drank some wine.
In a Medium post from March 24, "Ending my campaign for Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District," Broyles revealed that she had tried to kill herself. "That morning, March 2nd, after thirteen days of being the center of a hometown scandal that garnered national media attention, 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 in her opening paragraph.
Broyles also goes on to give her take on how the situation thrust her into the national spotlight, which includes a focus on her now former friend whom she knew that was chaperoning the party:
I’d received death threats, got obliterated by cyber cowards hiding behind their computer screens and furiously typing on their keyboards, and got bombarded with prank calls (from people who found my number online) telling me to drop out of politics and go kill myself. The public barrage was the result of a night I honestly can’t remember that took place while I assisted in chaperoning a preteen sleepover with a close friend (now former) from law school. I used poor judgment mixing wine with medication that helps you relax, that I’d never taken before. A mom who wasn’t there, and who never directly contacted me to express any issues, decided to use a ghost Twitter account and send a series of public tweets to me several days after the sleepover accusing me of saying awful things to her child and the other young ladies present while intoxicated. The alleged hurtful comments this woman claims I made under duress do not represent who I am, and to this day, I still have no recollection of what actually occurred that evening and have not spoken to my now former friend as she conveniently threw me under a bus to superficially avoid further interrogation from her ex-husband during their custody battle.
Broyles, an attorney and formal television anchor also detailed the anxiety and insomnia she experienced while running against Sen. James Inhofe in 2020, to whom she lost by 30 points.
She also discusses how she doesn't think a man would have been "tabloid fodder" for such a story. "And ask any woman in leadership, we’re judged more harshly for our mistakes than men (I’d bet you a man wouldn’t have been tabloid fodder over this). After the sleepover incident, I lost support from democrats. The DCCC announced it was distancing itself from me. The news cycle was the longest 9 days of my life. I didn’t even feel safe staying in my own home due to the threats I received," she wrote.
"Today, I am ending my campaign for Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District to focus on mself and my happiness," Broyles wrote towards the end of her Thursday piece. "This decision hasn’t been easy to make; I got into politics because I wanted to help people. To give every Oklahoman a fair shot and a decent life. To my family, friends, and supporters who’ve stood by me and believed in me when I was on top of my game and when I fell from grace, thank you."
In her final paragraph, she also revealed she has checked into rehab and is "already making dramatic process." In closing she writes, "I don’t know what the journey ahead for me looks like, but I’m grateful to be alive with a fighting spirit and keep my promise — I’m not done yet."
Rep. Bice, whom Broyles was challenging, beat incumbent Rep. Kendra Horn in 2020 with 52.1 percent to Horn's 47.9 percent. Horn was a Democrat elected in the blue wave from 2018 and had served just one term.
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