Twitter Requires Candidates to Win Primaries to Get Verified Occurred on 6 Aug 2019

On August 2, 2019, Laura Loomer announced she would be running for the U.S. Congress in Florida’s 21st congressional district. Even though she was personally banned from Twitter about eight months prior, Twitter policy would have meant that she gets a verified campaign account because she is running for office.

However, a few days later, Twitter told The Hill and told CNN that instead of verifying all candidates, it would only be verifying candidates who win their primary races. A Twitter spokesperson said the following to The Hill:

While the public verification form is on hold, our teams around the world continue to verify select Twitter accounts, which include elected officials and government agencies. In the US, once candidates win their primary elections and/or qualify for the general election ballot for Congressional, Senate or Gubernatorial races we will verify their official Twitter accounts.

This didn’t just impact Loomer and her campaign. Left-wingers woke up to this policy a few months later when some of their candidates also remained unverified vs their verified incumbent opponents. In December of 2019, Twitter announced it would be making an effort to verify candidates. However, Loomer never got her personal account back and never was able to establish a verified campaign account, even after winning her primary race.