Republican's daughter urges people not to vote for her dad as state representative

'I don’t buy into this whole systemic racism thing at all,' candidate Robert Regan says

The daughter of a Republican state representative candidate in Michigan has urged residents not to vote for her father in a tweet that has gone viral.

The post from Stephanie Regan, which has received more than 37,000 retweets since it was posted on Tuesday, urges anyone who is 18 or above not to vote for her father Robert Regan.

“If you’re in Michigan and 18+ pls for the love of god do not vote for my dad for state rep tell everyone,” the tweet reads.

In a number of follow up tweets the day after Ms Regan said she did not feel “safe” publicising aspects of her father’s “beliefs” but urged people to do their own research.

“Do a quick fb or google search to find info about his campaign,” she said. “I don’t feel safe rn sharing further information regarding his beliefs, but please look him up and just read for yourself.”

She confirmed her identity to The Daily Dot but did not immediately respond to the outlet for a request for comment about the response to her tweet.

Mr Regan addressed the comment from his daughter in a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday.

“I am happy that she feels confident enough in our relationship to express her opposing thoughts so publicly,” he said in the statement, going on the defend the first amendment.

The representative hopeful also told The Hill that he was not surprised by his daughter's statement as they disagree on a number of issues including systemic racism, the existence of white privilege, and Black Lives Matter.

“She’s a big believer in that,” he continued while adding, “The only place where I really see systemic racism would be the abortion clinic cause they seem to target the African American community.”

“I don’t buy into this whole systemic racism thing at all,” he later said.

Mr Regan told the outlet that he thinks his daughter’s higher education may have played a part in their starkly different beliefs.

“A lot of students when they go off to these liberal university campuses, like the University of Colorado, the University of Texas and Austin — and she went to the University of Colorado in Boulder — and you know, they just kind of get sucked into this Marxist, communist ideology and she and I just don’t see eye to eye when it comes to the whole socialism, communism, Marxist philosophy,” he said.

Mr Regan is set to go up against two other Republicans in an August 2020 primary for the position represent District 73 in the Michigan state House.

Ms Regan expressed surprised that the tweet had gone viral and continued to urge people to educate themselves in a later tweet.

"Ty everyone offering support and love! my dms and notifs are crazy it’s hard to reply but pls know i appreciate u!!!! i didn’t think anyone past hometown friends would see this but this is more than political beliefs!! ppl see a familiar name & vote. READ. GOOGLE," she said.