Nurse practitioner Susanna Gibson ran for Virginia’s House of Delegates last month. Then, she saw her campaign rocked by reports about her livestreaming and monetizing sex acts with her husband.

Gibson lost her race… but she may not be finished with politics.

“I won’t lose next time,” Gibson told The Associated Press in her first interview since the controversy erupted in September.

Plus, Gibson has found her signature issue: revenge porn.

Specifically, Gibson told the AP that she’s “laser-focused” on an avenue to support female candidates navigating sex scandals.

“There are going to be very few millennial women who are aging into running for office, who don’t have some kind of picture or video on their device, on a partner’s device, somewhere on their iCloud, right?” Gibson said.

“Using what platform I have to make sure that this does not remain acceptable. Doing what I can do to prevent this from happening to any other woman. I’m still figuring out next steps and what that looks like. But that is my plan.”

Earlier this month, Gibson lost to her Republican opponent, David Owen, by only about 2 percentage points, a rather narrow margin during a scandal of this scale. In fact, Gibson secured about the same share of votes in the competitive 57th District as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe did there in 2021, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.

Gibson herself estimated that the controversy had minimal impact on the outcome.

After all, she was still nabbing endorsements from liberal interest groups, even after the controversy.

“I was personally really amazed by the way she persevered,” said Han Jones, political director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia.

Gibson said she even had the support of one of the state’s most prominent politicians, state Senate President pro temporte L. Louise Lucas.

Her campaign staffers stood by her, friends flew in from around the country to comfort her and over 2,000 new donors contributed to her campaign in the immediate aftermath, she said.

The Virginia Democrat remains unapologetic about her participation in the online sex acts. She maintains that a crime was committed when members of the news media were alerted to the existence of videos documenting what had been live-streamed.

Daniel Watkins, an attorney for Gibson who specializes in defamation cases, has said the dissemination of the videos was a violation of Virginia’s revenge porn law. The law makes it a crime to “maliciously” disseminate nude or sexual images of another person with the intent to “coerce, harass, or intimidate.”

Gibson, who maintains that nothing about her use of the streaming platform had any bearing on her qualifications to hold public office, said sex between consenting adults should never merit a news story.

“What is newsworthy is gun violence. What is not newsworthy is someone’s consensual sex life within the confines of their marriage or with any partner,” Gibson said.

Ken Nunnenkamp, executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia, said he didn’t think it was the consensual sex that voters took issue with but rather the fact it was streamed online. He called the behavior disqualifying for public office.

According to the AP, Gibson refused to either confirm or deny any plans to run for office again.

Regardless, Gibson says lawmakers should expect to see her lobbying the General Assembly on issues like privacy and revenge porn, abortion and LGBTQ+ topics.

She also plans to resume working as a nurse practitioner, she said.

 

Read more: Pornstar Dem candidate under investigation in perjury scandal

 

The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to his article.