Old tweets by Austin Davis, the Democratic nominee for Pa. lieutenant governor, have come back to haunt him

In 2011, Austin Davis was a 22-year-old intern for a state representative from Allegheny County when he expressed thoughts on Twitter about a range of topics, including what women should and shouldn’t do.

Female contraception? He was all for it. Women with big muscles at the gym? That’s “disgusting.”

Davis is now the 32-year-old Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania.

The tweets are offensive. And Davis knows it.

In an interview with The Inquirer, Davis expressed “disappointment and regret” for those tweets. He acknowledged that some were infused with misogyny.

“The truth is, most college-age men in their 20s have a lot of learning to do,” Davis said. “I certainly did. And I spent a lot of time learning and growing as a person.”

The decade-old social media activity is coming under fresh scrutiny this week — thanks to a pair of Republicans with about 1 million combined Twitter followers — and could pose problems for his party’s nominee for governor, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, in addition to his own candidacy.

Shapiro picked Davis, now a state representative from Allegheny County, as his running mate in January. Davis won the three-candidate primary in May.

In the tweets, Davis commiserated with someone who complained his room smelled “like Asian sex,” saying it was “nasty as Hell” and in a reply to a since-deleted post, said some women “need to become better judges of character, and make better choices about who they sleep wit.”

Davis also expounded on the physiological effects of alcohol consumption, noting in September 2011 that you’ve consumed too much “when ur still drunk in the morning.” A couple weeks earlier he tweeted he’d been “pulled over twice in one night! But ... thank god I skated through both of them.”

Davis on Thursday said the second tweet referenced a night when he was stopped by police at two different DUI checkpoints but was allowed to drive on because he had not been drinking.

“I was a stupid college kid and didn’t use the best words to describe that,” he said.

In a February 2012 tweet, Davis wrote: “This professor is talking about an article called ‘How to bring ur kid up gay’ WTF.”

Davis said he recalled taking offense at an article distributed by one of his professors that suggested sexual orientation was a choice or a result of upbringing.

Screenshots of those tweets, and several others, were circulated this week by Arthur Schwartz, a conservative political consultant and friend of Donald Trump Jr. who has researched the social media histories of reporters and others perceived as enemies of Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns and administration. Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer and now an adviser to Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, also tweeted about them.

Davis said he did not remember the tweets before they were resurfaced but is not surprised Republicans are bringing them up now. He called the effort an attempt to distract voters from Mastriano’s call for a ban on abortion without exceptions and to end same-sex marriage.

“They are trying to distract from their positions today by looking up something from when I was a 21-year-old college student 11 years ago,” he said.

When asked for comment, Shapiro’s campaign made Davis available for an interview.

The U.S. House Select Committee examining the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol issued a subpoena in January, seeking documents and testimony from Schwartz about his role as an adviser to Donald Trump Jr. and his communications with the organizers of the rally that preceded the riot.

Ellis received her own subpoena for documents and testimony from the committee a week later that suggested she had “participated in attempts to disrupt or delay the certification of the election results” based on “claims that the 2020 election was stolen.”

While Davis was a college student at the time of the tweets now drawing scrutiny, he was already drawing attention. A Pittsburgh Tribune-Review profile written in early 2011 quoted him as having “a passion for public service” and laid out his early efforts at a life in politics. That included his convincing the mayor of McKeesport, his hometown, to create a youth advisory council and later serving as his high school’s class president.

The story quoted Marc Gergely, a Democratic state representative who hired Davis as an intern, and said he “has a great insight into the region.” Davis suggested he might one day hold Gergely’s seat.

That happened in a 2018 special election. Gergely, elected to eight terms in the House, resigned after being convicted on charges related to an illegal gambling ring.

Shapiro, then in his first term as attorney general, touted the case as evidence that prosecuting corruption was a priority for his office.

The Mastriano campaign did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment. Neither did Carrie Lewis DelRosso, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor.

Mastriano endorsed Teddy Daniels in the nine-candidate Republican primary for lieutenant governor. But last week, the Mastriano campaign posted a video on Facebook of him and DelRosso walking together down the Capitol steps in Harrisburg.

“Looking forward to winning,” DelRosso responded with a comment, “and being by your side to lead PA!”

In April, Daniels’ wife accused him of abuse, and a court issued protection-from-abuse orders requested by her. Daniels denied the allegations, and a judge dismissed those orders a week later.

Last week, Republicans in the state legislature passed a bill seeking to amend the state constitution to, among other things, allow nominees for governor to choose their own running mates, instead of holding separate primaries for lieutenant governor.