Student David Hogg denies endorsing Deutch’s challenger

David Hogg says he didn’t say he’d support a Republican candidate who wants to oust Congressman Ted Deutch, contrary to what the challenger is claiming.

Javier Manjarres, who’s been running for months but didn’t formally announce his candidacy until Tuesday, wrote on Twitter that he “ran into” Hogg at an event and “Hogg says he will vote for me over Democrat @RepTedDeutch.”

Hogg denied the endorsement in his own Twitter post Wednesday night. “Definitely did not say that. We endorse policy not people,” he wrote.

“I stand by my claim,” Manjarres said Thursday afternoon. He said in a brief telephone interview that Hogg may have made the comment in a way that was “him just appeasing me.”

Hogg, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has become a prominent national voice for gun restrictions and school safety since the Feb. 14 massacre at his school in which 17 people were killed and 17 wounded.

Deutch, a Democrat whose Broward and southeastern Palm Beach County district includes the Parkland school, has been leading the political response to the Stoneman Douglas massacre, and is also an outspoken proponent of gun controls.

At a community town hall on Tuesday night in Coral Springs, about three miles from the school, Hogg was one of the questioners, and he wasn’t critical of Deutch.