At just 21 years old, C.J. Pearson boasts a lengthy record in the public arena. After going viral as a preteen for his self-taped takedown of Barack Obama, he has climbed the ranks of the right wing’s activist-pundit class, amassing hundreds of thousands of fans and a prominent perch at the conservative content platform PragerU.
Now, Pearson is hoping to add another line to his resume: Georgia state lawmaker.
The Augusta native is a candidate in a special primary election on Tuesday to fill a vacancy in a safely Republican state House district just outside his hometown. And even though he’s up against two other legitimate Republican contenders in the primary, Pearson is getting attention from huge platforms like Fox News—and characteristically projecting brash confidence.
“I couldn’t care less about race but in 10 days, the youngest black lawmaker in the country will be a MAGA Republican,” he has posted on X to his nearly 500,000 followers.
But there’s a particular aspect of Pearson’s history that he might prefer to avoid talking about—one that raises questions about his fitness for public office.