Sam Smeltzer, also known as Elyon Badger, told the Free Beacon he is campaigning on taxing the rich, health care, and fighting for furries
A “furry” who identifies as a honey badger, celebrated the assassinations of Charlie Kirk and UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and was banned from X for saying “america deserved 9/11” is running in the Democratic primary for a competitive House seat in Michigan.
Samuel Smeltzer, a 36-year-old IT contractor from Lansing who goes by the alias “Elyon Badger” and dresses as a honey badger at political events and furry conventions, filed as a candidate to represent Michigan’s Seventh Congressional District. Though his fundraising has lagged behind frontrunner Bridget Brink, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, his campaign has drawn local buzz including an October front-page photo shoot in Michigan’s Between the Lines LGBT newspaper that touts his “honey badger energy.”
The campaign is the latest example of the online-activist wing of the Democratic Party rising up to challenge mainstream leaders and a window into how these activists have merged online memes with fringe political views and support for violence.
Just after Kirk’s assassination in September, Smeltzer posted a meme on Bluesky reading, “If guns make us so safe, why am I dead?” He added, “How can we defeat evil, if evil is mourned when it’s defeated?”
Smeltzer on the day of the assassination posted several other comments in which he appeared to support the murder, including “I for one, celebrate the death of every Nazi” and “Good things can happen.”
He also issued a campaign statement praising the Kirk assassination.
Two days after the assassination of Thompson, he seemed to praise alleged gunman Luigi Mangione, writing on Bluesky, “Seeing the public support of the man who took action has actually started to cure my depression.”
In October 2024, Smeltzer posted a screenshot of an email from X support showing that he had been banned from the app for writing, “America deserved 9/11.”
In an email interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Smeltzer said he is running a “healthcare and tax the rich campaign” and wants to use a role in Congress to advocate for fellow furries.
“The furry community is the ultimate form of freedom in America and that’s why conservatives hate it and the queer community so much,” he wrote.
Smeltzer dinged Brink, who served as ambassador to Ukraine from 2022 to 2025, as an establishment Democrat incapable of “fight[ing] for the working class.”
Candidates like Brink “can only trudge along and drag this broken cart through the mud, they can’t fix it,” Smeltzer wrote in an email to the Free Beacon. “The party needs Honey Badger energy.”
Brink, for her part, did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment. She has remained silent on Smeltzer since her furry opponent announced his candidacy, declining to answer when the National Republican Congressional Committee called on her to condemn Smeltzer’s comments about Kirk’s assassination.
Smeltzer’s social media activity also includes posts of himself in a fursuit lying down on a pentagram and saying he hates the United States and loves China.
The winner of the Democratic primary for Michigan’s seventh district—considered a toss-up—will face off against Republican incumbent Tom Barrett.
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