William Lawrence’s deleted posts put family views on the ballot

With the November election approaching, Lawrence’s deleted posts and explanations leave Michigan’s 7th District voters to weigh his record on the family.

William Lawrence is the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s 7th District¹, and CNN reports he deleted hundreds of old social-media posts¹ before running. In those posts he challenged the nuclear-family home¹ and called for free and open migration¹.

CNN first reported the posts², and many appeared under Lawrence’s older Twitter handle². According to the Daily Wire, Lawrence won the August Democratic primary with roughly 44% of the vote. Lawrence faces Republican Rep. Tom Barrett in a competitive race.

Family at stake

This race is about more than borders or the Senate. It is a contest over the family itself. Lawrence criticized the nuclear-family home¹ and praised queer families for what he called “solidarity and wealth sharing.”² A man who wants to write federal law put those words in public, and his own posts show how far he took them.

What he wrote

It starts with his own words. In an April 28, 2021 post, Lawrence wrote that finding a stable cooperative house was the biggest success of his late 20s and rejected what he called the nuclear-family domicile³.

From there he went further.

He also advocated free and open migration. CNN reports that he also argued for a “fundamental overhaul” of the Constitution¹.

April 28, 2021Lawrence posts about the co-op house and nuclear-family domicile
September 24absentee ballots become available
October 24 through November 1early voting
November 3, 2026Michigan’s next election

His political record

These posts came from a career organizer, not a bystander. CNN identifies him as an original co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and says he helped bring the Green New Deal into Democratic politics in 2018¹. The Daily Wire reported that his campaign has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and that Lawrence’s Democratic Socialists of America membership had lapsed in July, according to his statement to CNN². The political question is whether those allies stand beside the family views Lawrence expressed in his deleted posts.

He has also treated his own party as a target. The Daily Wire quotes him declaring, “It’s time for the Dem civil war to rage.”²

The district leaves little room for that kind of politics. CNN reported that Donald Trump carried Michigan’s 7th District by less than two points in 2024¹. Semafor calls it “one of the tougher targets for a Bernie Sanders-endorsed challenger.”⁴

Lawrence responds

Now Lawrence is on defense. Semafor reports Lawrence said, “Those posts are out of step with what I believe now.” He said the 2020 protests raised important criticisms of the criminal-justice system.

The deletions came first. Lawrence told Semafor that he deleted hundreds of posts before running for Congress because, he said, they could have been misinterpreted⁴.

Reps. Hillary Scholten and Brad Schneider criticized Lawrence’s judgment and questioned whether he could win. His answer asks voters to separate his present positions from his past words. Families should notice which words he has taken back and which he has not. He has named police, borders and Slotkin, and families should ask whether he has answered what he wrote about the nuclear family.

What voters should do

Lawrence is running against Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th District, and the Daily Wire reports the general-election contest is set for November². Michigan’s next election is November 3, 2026; absentee ballots are available from September 24, and early voting runs October 24 through November 1⁵. Before that vote, families should read the archived post and weigh the rest of Lawrence’s reported record alongside his explanation³. Voters should judge any candidate who calls the family home isolating and violent before sending him to Congress¹.