Jon Bruning Also Follows Teenage Girls On Twitter

Nebraska GOP Senate Candidate Also Follows Teenage Girls On Twitter

Apparently, there is more than one GOP Senate candidate in Nebraska who follows teenage girls on Twitter.

During a debate on Tuesday, Attorney General Jon Bruning, a Republican, went after his primary opponent, State Treasurer Don Stenberg, also a Republican, for following his 14-year-old daughter on Twitter.

"This Sunday, my daughter walks in, and she says, 'Don Stenberg's trying to follow me on Twitter,'" said Bruning. "My daughter's 14 years old. Now you tell me -- I'd like to know, why does a 62-year-old man want to follow a 14-year-old girl on Twitter? I'd really like to know. She said, 'Dad, that's kind of creepy.'"

Stenberg, flummoxed, said that his staff runs his Twitter account. The campaign later clarified that it has a program that searches for words like "Republican," "pro-life," "Stenberg," and "Bruning" and automatically follows them.

But on Thursday, the Nebraska Watchdog site reported that Stenberg is not the only one following teenage girls on Twitter:

However, Bruning follows several young women, a teenage friend of his daughter’s and one 16-year-old girl who describes herself as a homeschooled girl who “loves her country.” Coincidentally, the 16-year-old girl also is followed by Stenberg -- illustrating how political campaigns search out people to follow on Twitter in an attempt to boost their number of Twitter followers.

Bruning's press secretary, Natalie Krings, said that the girls "probably were already following the attorney general." The Nebraska Watchdog noted that some of them do indeed follow Bruning, but others have their profiles locked, meaning the information is hidden.

Watch the original exchange in the debate:

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