“There are human errors and even Jesus dropped the cross three times,” McDowell, a 41-year-old unmarried real estate broker, told POLITICO. “I’m not running to be the Pope. I’m running to make New Jersey more affordable.” | Getty Vulgar video causes Republicans to pull support from Assembly candidate in competitive district

The video clip is just 10 seconds long, but it was enough to cause Cape May County Republicans to pull support from the candidate they had endorsed for Assembly in what was supposed to be one of the most competitive districts in the state.

“Let me tell you right now,” the candidate, Brian McDowell, said at a Wildwood bar, slurring his words, to a woman who’s barely in the frame. “You should f--k me. It would really be good. Listen, you never know.” McDowell said the woman in the video is a friend of his whose identity he did not wish to reveal.


After the video circulated around South Jersey last week, Cape May County Republicans disavowed McDowell, saying on the party’s Facebook page that “issues and information have surfaced.”

But McDowell — a contestant on the third season of "The Apprentice" who also coordinated President Donald Trump’s campaign in Cape May County — has no plans to drop out of the race.

“There are human errors and even Jesus dropped the cross three times,” McDowell, a 41-year-old unmarried real estate broker, told POLITICO. “I’m not running to be the Pope. I’m running to make New Jersey more affordable.”

This isn’t the first time Republicans have found themselves in this kind of situation.

Two years ago in North Jersey, Republicans endorsed Anthony Cappola as one of their two candidates in District 38, which is one of the most competitive districts in the state. Then POLITICO published excerpts of a book Cappola had written in the early 2000s filled with rants , slurs and stereotypes about various ethnic groups, religions and famous figures.

State Republicans, including Cappola’s running mate, immediately swore him off. And Cappola at first planned to drop out, until he found out his name would remain on the ballot anyway and ultimately decided to keep running.

McDowell said the video — which he said was recorded just last month — came after two anonymous letters were written to Cape May County GOP Chairman Mark Karavan bringing up his past.

A screenshot from a video of New Jersey Assembly candidate Brian McDowell using vulgar language.

“Some were true and some were false — most were false,” said McDowell. The letters, according to McDowell, included information about his name being in a domestic violence registry and his arrest at the World Series in 2008.

McDowell said his ex-girlfriend filed a harassment complaint against him more than a decade ago, but that it was later dismissed.

“Back about 12 years ago, maybe 14 years ago, I proposed to my ex-girlfriend on a SEPTA bus in Philadelphia. She didn’t like that. She considered it harassment. She filed a restraining order against me,” said McDowell. “It was later dismissed and we went on to have two kids together in a relationship that lasted 10 years.

McDowell said he was arrested at the World Series in 2008 for trespassing but that he did have a ticket, and that the prosecution determined it was a wrongful arrest. Nevertheless, his mugshot remains online. “I might use the mugshot as my campaign official picture,” McDowell said.

The situation for Republicans in South Jersey isn’t quite as dire as it was for Republicans in North Jersey. Cappola’s problems surfaced in October, just a month before the general election. But they couldn’t get him removed from the ballot in an affordable way, since the printing deadline had passed and they would have had to pay thousands to reprint them and fight Democrats in court.

McDowell’s controversy surfaced with more than enough time for political parties to disassociate themselves from him on the ballot.

But Cape May County GOP Chairman Marcus Karavan said that as of right now, the only candidate his party is endorsing for Assembly is Cumberland County Freeholder James Sauro, who ran unsuccessfully in 2015 and had his own, milder controversy over comments he made on his radio show

“At this point no decision has been made to endorse any other candidate. James Sauro is the Assembly candidate running on the line. That’s kind of where we are,” Karavan said.

Karavan acknowledged the video was the tipping point in swearing off McDowell’s candidacy. “The GOP is very supportive of women and women’s rights. We have three women who have been elected as freeholders, several women constitutional officers. Supporting women and women’s groups is one of our core values. You can do the math,” Karavan said.

But as of right now, McDowell said he retains the support of the Republican parties in neighboring Cumberland County, which makes up a large portion of the district, and Atlantic County, which includes a tiny portion of it. Atlantic County GOP Chairman Keith Davis said he’ll consider an effort to revoke the endorsement if somebody’s “going to make a case,” but that the district is such a tiny portion of his county that “I don’t think it’s going to give him a big boost.”

McDowell emailed POLITICO several letters of recommendation that local political figures, including Karavan, had sent on his behalf. One was a recommendation letter to President Trump for a job in the Small Business Administration or “any other real estate department,” signed by the district’s Democratic incumbents, who called McDowell “an individual of high character and ability.

“Mr. McDowell is a true leader and an individual whose meticulous attention to detail and friendly disposition are tools that foster an environment of partnership and trust with those around him,” reads the letter from state Sen. Van Drew and Assemblymen Bob Andrzejczak and Bruce Land.

The Democrats' spokeswoman, Allison Murphy, said despite the form letter “we didn’t ask him to run on our ticket and endorse him.”

“There would be a vetting process,” Murphy said.

This isn’t the first time McDowell has made the news. In November, he told Business Insider that he has “potentially damaging” audio of Donald Trump from 2005, when he was a contestant on the Apprentice (McDowell was “fired” in the second episode). But McDowell said he would not release the tape or describe it because he wanted Trump to win.

Now McDowell says he plans to auction the recording off — some day.

“My mother passed away from lung cancer,” he told POLITICO by text message. "Eventually I will auction off my uncut, unfiltered Apprentice audio that was sought after during the President’s election and donate 100 percent of the proceeds to cancer research.”

McDowell said he was not inebriated in the video, though he had consumed a “couple” of drinks

"Yes, I had a couple of drinks but it also shows the confidence that I have in a room. And I believe in life most people enjoy confidence," McDowell said.

View the video here.