Like many politicians, Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) has some very passionate, very anonymous defenders on social media.
But Molinaro is probably the only politician whose biggest anonymous online attack dog speaks in the voice of Mary Poppins.
An account on X with the handle @MPoppinsNY impersonated the iconic magical nanny in over 200 posts that boosted Molinaro and relentlessly criticized his current and previous Democratic opponent Josh Riley, from August 2022 to July 2023.
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The account—which features a profile photo of Poppins suspended midair holding her signature umbrella—essentially ran an unofficial rapid response operation for Molinaro, who won a highly competitive campaign for a New York swing district in 2022 and is attempting to do so again in 2024.
“Oh dear,” began a May 2023 post responding to Riley’s criticism of Molinaro. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about? And, you might want to learn to spell.”
Other comments made by the Poppins account may have gone down more like bitter medicine than a spoonful of sugar. “You’re a miserable person, my dear,” read an April 2023 post bashing a Molinaro critic. In another, the account responded to an apparent foe by asking, “My dear, day drinking, are we?”
While The Daily Beast could not confirm who runs the account, there are signs that it could be someone with access to Molinaro’s own social media accounts.
The biggest clue came on July 5, 2023. At 2:25 p.m. that day, Molinaro’s official X account replied to a post from Riley, announcing the birth of his second son, Mateo. Molinaro’s post extended a warm congratulations to his opponent from him and his wife, Corinne Adams.
“There is no more challenging or rewarding role than that of parent,” Molinaro’s post read. “Congratulations to you both. Corinne and I wish much happiness and new blessing to your growing family” it continued.
Two minutes later, at 2:27 p.m., @MPoppinsNY shared Riley’s post, tagged Riley and, bizarrely, made the exact same comment Molinaro just had. The only difference was that the post added a period at the end of the caption.
A half-hour later, Molinaro’s official X account quote-shared Riley’s post with the same caption verbatim, including the period that the Poppins account had added.
The back and forth between the accounts was odd, especially since the Poppins account never offered an explanation or elaborated further. In fact, the account never posted again after July 5, though its past comments remain visible on X.
Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the congressman himself is a known Poppins fan. In February 2019, Molinaro took his son, Eli, to see his first movie. It was, of course, Mary Poppins.
“Nearly perfect in every way,” Molinaro wrote in an Instagram post, referencing Poppins’ famous self-branding.
As Dutchess County executive in 2019, Molinaro hosted a free screening of the 1964 musical classic at a local park. (“Ready to have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious time at our award-winning Bowdoin Park?” read the invitation from Molinaro.)
The Poppins account only spoke of its relationship to Molinaro once. In one September 2022 post, the user behind it claimed to be a resident of New York’s 19th District and claimed, “I don’t know Molinaro well.” (“I’m from the other end of NY-19 and I’d take him over this clown any day,” the account said, referencing Riley.)
Still, the Poppins account seemed intimately familiar with specific details in press coverage of Molinaro. When the Dutchess County comptroller's office reviewed Molinaro’s official car usage in a county-wide audit, it posted that Molinaro drives “a leased Tahoe valued at $79k” and that “some in his position have a driver and security.”
When The Daily Beast asked Molinaro about the account in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, he responded with an incredulous, “Come on.”
Asked if he was behind the account, he laughed. “I have absolutely no idea what you, they, or it is about,” he said.
The Daily Beast sent two emails to Molinaro’s office asking whether he or a staffer ran the Poppins account, but received no response.
Of course, this could all be a bizarre coincidence. It’s plausible that a Molinaro superfan ran the account, copied the congressman’s post, and then decided to ditch the Poppins act.
But it’s also possible a staffer with access to both Molinaro’s official account and the Poppins account made a mistake, then corrected it before logging out of the anonymous account for good. It could plausibly be Molinaro himself, though he denied any knowledge of the account.
This year, Molinaro is running for a second term in his competitive New York district, which spans a broad swath of upstate New York from Ithaca to the Hudson Valley. He’s a top target of Democratic campaign brass and faces Riley, who was a staff counsel to former Sen. Al Franken, in a rematch of their 2022 race. That year, Molinaro won by less than 2 percentage points.
Now established on Capitol Hill, Molinaro is considered to have some star power in the House GOP conference. The freshman has drawn headlines for his centrist-leaning brand of Republicanism. He was the first Republican, for example, to join a Democrat-led bill to expand protections for in-vitro fertilization in the wake of Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling. (He has still endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2024.)
If Molinaro was behind the Poppins account, though, he would be in good company among fellow politicians who have been caught using burner social media profiles.
Famously, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) went undercover to lurk on X using the alias “Pierre Delecto.” And Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) used a second X account to boost her preferred presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, The New York Times revealed in January.
Notably, the Poppins account follows six profiles, all of them connected to New York politics—including Molinaro, Riley, former Rep. Lee Zeldin, and the New York state GOP. Four X users followed @MPoppinsNY, including Bryan Cranna, the former mayor of Tivoli, New York, the small town where Molinaro also served as mayor from 1995 to 2007.
In fairness, Molinaro could potentially claim an alibi for the mysterious mix-up with his account and the Poppins account. On July 5, 2023, Molinaro was scheduled to attend a roundtable on mental health and substance use disorders with local officials at a library in Binghamton, New York, at 3 p.m.—not long after the tweets about Riley were sent.
But given the opportunity to shed more light on the situation, Molinaro and his camp seems to have taken advice from Poppins. “I would like to make one thing clear,” the magical nanny said. “I never explain anything.”
