How ‘Bigfoot erotica’ has caused a scandal and internet sensation in a US congressional race

A Democrat congressional candidate accused her Republican opponent of having an obsession with the mythical creature

Ms Cockburn was previously an investigative journalist (Getty Images for Tribeca Film Fe)

A political quip about Bigfoot sex has meant a strange turn for a US Congressional race, and managed to catch the attention of the nation.

The whole affair stems from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District race, where Democratic candidate Leslie Cockburn tweeted on Sunday that her opponent — Republican candidate Denver Riggleman — is “a devotee of Bigfoot erotica”.

While perhaps humorous for anyone who does not take every twist and turn of a political race in the US completely seriously, the tweet has nonetheless caught fire online, and has led to a huge jump in interest in the mythical woodland creature’s sexual life.

“My opponent Denver Riggleman, running mate of Corey Stewart, was caught on camera campaigning with a white supremacist. Now he has been exposed as a devotee of Bigfoot erotica. This is not what we need on Capitol Hill”, Ms Cockbrun wrote in a tweet that included a photograph of a nude Bigfoot that was apparently pulled from Mr Riggleman’s Instagram account.

Mr Riggleman has denied the accusation and told CNN that he wrote a couple books about Bigfoot. During that interview, Mr Riggleman acknowledged writing an unpublished text with the title of “The Mating Habits of Bigfoot and Why Women Want Him”. He added that the books were parodies.

But the clash has sparked interest online. On Google, for instance, searches for “Bigfoot erotica” spiked on July 30, far surpassing any previous search spike in the history of the company for the pairing of words (previously the most interest in the term came in January of 2014, although it is unclear why people were so interested then.

The Congressional race in Virginia has also led to a spike in, well, let’s say, “private” interest in Bigfoot. Searches for “Bigfoot erotica” on the popular pornography website Pornhub, for instance, increased 8,000 per cent following the claims against Mr Riggleman

Whatever the case, the two congressional candidates will face off in the upcoming midterm elections in November. They will be replacing Representative Thomas Garrett, who decided not to seek reelection this ear in an announcement in which he declared that he is an alcoholic.