Matthews mayor candidate addresses years of online posts on inflammatory issues
A Matthews mayoral candidate has posted inflammatory comments for years to a blog and video platform on contentious political issues, including LGBTQ rights, abortion and religion.
Leon Threatt, a town commissioner in the southeast Mecklenburg community, is challenging Mayor John Higdon in the 2025 election. Threatt, a pastor, veteran and former police officer, is running a campaign centered on his leadership experience and says the greatest challenge facing the town is managing development amid rapid growth.
“Leadership is my strong suit, my ability to bring people together and to build collaboration for problem solving,” he told The Charlotte Observer.
An Observer review of the posts showed Threatt referred to abortion as “genocide” and attributed natural disasters to religious punishment in his online postings. He’s called into question the results of the 2020 election and stood by former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson amid his scandals.
Higdon said Threatt’s “remarks speak for themselves.”
“Over the years, my opponent has made several statements that many consider controversial, often seeking to marginalize certain groups or dismiss well-established scientific principles that conflict with his narrow worldview ... I encourage the public to review them thoroughly and form their own conclusions,” Higdon said in a statement to the Observer.
Threatt says he doesn’t believe his online history will affect his chances in November.
“My values are still the same, my sense of worldview is the same, but the responsibilities of a mayor or a commissioner are much different than the responsibilities and duties of a congressional member, and so I’m not dealing with those national issues,” he said.
Days after speaking to an Observer reporter, his personal website that contained his blog posts was no longer accessible and redirected to his campaign page. Threatt said he “took it down to draw all activity to our current campaign.”
Threatt’s comments on abortion, LGBTQ rights and more
Threatt, the pastor of the Christian Faith Center in Matthews, described his online presence to the Observer as “an outreach of our church, dealing with difficult, challenging issues.”
“We launched that during the COVID season, and we felt like bringing a voice of clarity and common sense and good judgment to that process,” he said.
Blog posts on LeonThreatt.com reviewed by an Observer reporter called abortion a “genocide” in the Black community and said God uses natural disasters as punishment for sinful behavior.
Since 2021, Threatt has posted videos to Rumble, an online video-sharing platform that’s popular among some conservatives. Under the name “The Threatt Report,” video titles include “Is the Vaccination the Mark of the Beast?” and “The Sinister Cult of Wokeness.”
In a video posted days before the 2024 election, Threatt says it’s “wicked and evil” for a Pride flag to be displayed on the White House by the Biden administration and schools need to be “restored to a biblical values system.”
Threatt also endorses Robinson in the video. Robinson’s campaign was upended by a CNN report alleging the Republican governor nominee made a series of sexually explicit and racist comments on the message board of an adult website. Robinson denied the claims but lost to Democrat Josh Stein.
An earlier video titled “Voter Integrity” called into question Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Multiple investigations have found the 2020 election was secure.
“It really has brought devastation to our nation. All that great work that was done from 2016 to 2020, we saw it undermined and dismantled by a new administration that I don’t believe was duly elected by the people,” Threatt says in his video.
Threatt stands by comments, looks ahead to mayoral race
Threatt’s biography on his campaign website says he’s “deeply devoted and committed to the elevating and empowering of others through a biblical worldview” and directs people to his personal website to learn more about his “worldview.”
Asked about his past comments, Threatt told the Observer he’s said “many times” there were “enough concerns from reliable sources” about the 2020 election to warrant “some deeper investigation to the outcome of that election.”
He also said he stands by his endorsement of Robinson, who he called an “outstanding citizen.”
Threatt said he “felt like North Carolina failed miserably” in not electing Robinson and said it was an “ugly thing” for groups to go “deep into his past, find questionable mistakes or comments or decisions they made in their younger years and use that against them.”
Threatt’s videos and blog posts were made as recently as last year.
He said he’s focused on local issues as a municipal candidate and would be a compassionate leader, but his “sense of worldview hasn’t changed.”
He said he’s “committed to doing what’s good for people and my personal worldview” but “respects a person’s personal choices.”
“My worldview, though it may appear to be controversial for some, it is still trying to do what’s good for people,” he said.
