Virginia Lawmaker Faces Wrath of Donald Trump Supporters

A Republican state lawmaker from Virginia who stood up to Donald J. Trump is feeling the wrath of his angry supporters this week, facing a torrent of hectoring and death threats from people accusing him of being a Muslim terrorist.

David Ramadan, who described himself as the first immigrant to hold a seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates, called Mr. Trump a “moron” on Twitter earlier this week after the Republican presidential candidate criticized the state for requiring Republican voters to sign statements affirming their party affiliation.

Since then, Mr. Ramadan has received more than 5,000 hateful messages on Twitter and a flood of threatening emails. His voice mail has been filled with complaints that he is disenfranchising supporters of Mr. Trump. Mr. Ramadan, who was born in Lebanon to a Muslim family but does not practice Islam, has been accused of being a member of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic State by supporters of Mr. Trump.

@michaelbickle @BarbMuenchen @DavidIRamadan HE BETTER CARRY HIM A GUN EVERY WHERE HE GOES! HE JUST MIGHT NEED ONE

— Perry Norris (@PerryNorris9) December 29, 2015

.@DavidIRamadan Give us ALL Facts -> How much funding did u receive from Lebanon & from whom? What other funding from other M.E. countries?

— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) December 27, 2015

“They say you’re a terrorist, a Sharia guy,” Mr. Ramadan said, sharing some of the more benign messages he has received. “This is not the state of my party, this is not the state of the conservative movement that I belong to.” Sharia is the legal code of Islam based on the Quran.

Mr. Trump has tapped into a strain of anti-Islamic fervor in the United States after a series of terrorist attacks and the rise of the Islamic State this year. His call for surveillance of mosques and a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country has divided the Republican Party and led some of Mr. Trump’s opponents to call him a bigot.

Such attacks on his heritage are not new for Mr. Ramadan, 45, who fended off suggestions that he was part of a terrorist cell in 2011 when he first ran for office. However, he is concerned that Mr. Trump and his backers are tarnishing the Republican Party’s image.

“This is a phenomenon of mostly frustrated voters who fell for the hate and fear that Trump has put out,” Mr. Ramadan said. “This is very unfortunate.”

Mr. Ramadan, who works in the international franchising industry and travels regularly to the Middle East, moved to the United States when he was 19 to study at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. He has been active in the Republican Party ever since, admiring its philosophy of limited government and the hopeful conservative message of former President Reagan.

Now in the crosshairs of Mr. Trump’s supporters, safety is a concern for Mr. Ramadan. He planned to speak to the the F.B.I. on Tuesday to discuss the threats he had received and was doing his best to ignore the hate mail after fruitless efforts at explaining himself.

“I was hoping they didn’t have the facts,” said Mr. Ramadan, who had nothing to do with the party affiliation pledge. “Then they went into the terrorist stuff and the Muslim stuff so there’s no reason to engage them.”