A half-dozen mainstream Republican Senate candidates are drawing on the white "replacement" conspiracy theory to court voters this campaign season.
Those Republicans promote the baseless notion there's a plot to diminish the influence of white people in America. Such comments in recent weeks have gone largely ignored given the hard-line immigration rhetoric that's become commonplace among conservatives recently increasing during the Trump White House era.
But a Buffalo, New York, mass shooting that may have been inspired by the racist theory is drawing new attention to the GOP's growing embrace of certain white nationalist talking points. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has declined through a spokesperson to answer questions about replacement theory.
Weeks ago in Arizona, GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters accused Democrats of trying to flood the United States with millions of immigrants “to change the demographics of our country,” the Associated Press reported.
In Missouri, Senate candidate Eric Schmitt, the state attorney general, said Democrats were “fundamentally trying to change this country through illegal immigration.”
In Ohio, Republican Senate nominee JD Vance accused Democrats of trying to “transform the electorate.”