Republican Robert Regan, once referred to by the communications director for the Michigan Republican Party as “possibly the worst candidate I’ve ever seen”, has run for the state legislature three times and lost all three races. This year, he’s back to try again, running against two others in the Republican primary for the 84th Michigan state House district.
After his most recent loss to Democrat Carol Glanville in a special election in the former 74th House District, a very conservative part of the state, Regan was defiant. “One thing is now clear,” he wrote. “The RINO Republican establishment would rather have a Democrat than an America First Republican like me in office.”
Regan rose to national fame when he publicly declared that he tells his daughters, “If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it.” This, among other things, led one of his daughters to declare in her now-deleted Twitter account, “if you’re in michigan and 18+ pls for the love of god do not vote for my dad for state rep. tell everyone.”
This is hardly the only thing that has brought Regan to notoriety. Bridge Michigan shares some others:
In addition to the rape comments, Regan faced backlash for his other online activity. At one point, he called the Ukraine war a “fake war just like the fake pandemic” and shared a meme claiming that feminism is “a Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men.”
In other past social media posts, Regan shared conspiracy theories claiming that Jewish people were behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and presidential assassinations and control the banks as well as the media. […]
In another video posted in February 2021, Regan explained and endorsed QAnon, a wide-ranging conspiracy theory alleging world governments are controlled by a shadowy cabal of pedophiles who worked to undermine Trump and steal the 2020 election.
As part of a series of articles on the positions of state legislative candidates on issues like abortion rights and health care, Great Lakes Weekly reached out to Regan. One of the questions was “A 10-year rape victim was recently denied an abortion in Ohio. If abortions were ultimately banned in Michigan, would you allow exceptions for survivors of rape or incest?”
Regan responded, “Is that 10-year old rape story true? Pretty sure that was fake news.”
When sent a link showing that the story is, in fact, true, he answered, “Seems awfully strange to me. I’ll let it marinate a bit like the impeachment hoaxes and J6 ‘trials.'”
Even after three election defeats and endless media scrutiny of his extremist views, Regan’s Facebook page continues to be provocative. “People forget that this is about a rigged and stolen election as well as the grooming of our children in schools,” he wrote on July 28th.
Reposting an article about many Republicans wanting to move on from the 2020 elections and Donald Trump’s “Big Lie”, Regan wrote, “This is very sad and is also the reason for attacks against me. Election fraud is the single most important issue facing us. A close second is the predator grooming of our children in public and charter schools.”
If Regan wins his primary, he will again face Carol Glanville in the November general election.
