Midterms test whether Republicans not named Trump can win by stoking racial animosity
The fierce battle for control of Congress and the nation’s governorships has turned toward blatant and overtly racial attacks rarely seen since the civil rights era of the 1960s.
A new robo-call going out to voters in Georgia features a voice impersonating Oprah Winfrey and calling Stacey Abrams, who is running to become the nation’s first black woman elected governor, “a poor man’s Aunt Jemima.” In Florida, the Trump administration’s secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue, urged voters not to elect Andrew Gillum, who would be the state’s first black governor, with a colloquialism widely seen as having racial connotations: “This election is so cotton-pickin’ important.”
Some Republicans suddenly scrambled, following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, to distance themselves from Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). The moves came after King said a far-right Austrian party with historical Nazi ties would be Republican were it in the United States. Other King comments have drawn little criticism.
The 2016 election confirmed that a potential president could run — and win — after stoking racism. Now, in their closing days, the midterms are shaping up as a demonstration of whether the entire Republican Party can succeed by following his lead.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/midterms-test-whether-republicans-not-named-trump-can-win-by-stoking-racial-animosity/2018/11/04/bb5f00ac-e059-11e8-ab2c-b31dcd53ca6b_story.html?utm_term=.da15563df2c5&wpisrc=al_trending_now__alert-politics--alert-national&wpmk=1
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