Tuberville’s comments on race, crime reverberate loudly on campaign trail

Democrats are ripping the GOP for staying quiet over Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) declaration at a campaign rally that Democrats are pro-crime because they favor reparations and think criminals are “owed that.”  

Tuberville’s words at a Nevada campaign rally featuring former President Trump have put race at center stage in the final weeks of the campaign, leaving Democrats arguing the GOP’s crime narrative carries nasty racial overtones.   

The NAACP and other civil rights groups condemned Tuberville’s line as “flat out racist,” but it got a big cheer at the Nevada rally and Republican lawmakers aren’t condemning it, as the sentiment is not unpopular among some GOP base voters.   

Democrats say Tuberville’s comments reflect the GOP psychology behind efforts to push the issue of crime into the spotlight of Senate races in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina.   

“Using dog whistles is just not a way to present an argument to the American public without some serious consequences down the road,” warned Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), who said he was disappointed that fellow Republicans didn’t condemn Tuberville’s comments.   

“I would certainly hope and pray, if people on our side start using racially hostile language or disparage a whole section of America, that I would say something publicly about how wrong it was,” he said.   

Cleaver, who is Black, noted that President Biden and other Democrats swiftly condemned the disparaging racist remarks that three Los Angeles city council members made in a leaked recording.   

The White House is also pointing out the deafening silence among Republicans on the subject of Tuberville and other racism-driven attacks made on the campaign trail.   

“Here’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans: When a Democrat says something racist or antisemitic … we hold Democrats accountable,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “When a MAGA Republican says something racist and or antisemitic, they are embraced by cheering crowds and become celebrated and sought after.”   

Democratic strategists say Tuberville articulated the racially charged subtext of Republican attacks on the issue of crime.   

Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist, said language like what Tuberville leveled in his Saturday attack “is becoming more of a mainstay in Republican and MAGA talking points.”   

She said that several recent polls show that Black voters feel racism is increasing, a possible reflection of hardening political rhetoric on topics like “wokeness.”   

Finney said the way Republicans “hammer” on urban crime “would make you believe that Black and Brown families don’t worry about crime.”  

“These are racist dog whistles that are front and center in the talking points that we’re seeing from MAGA Republicans across the country not being challenged by Republican leadership who recognize they can’t afford to anger those in their base who may agree,” she added. “They believe this is an effective message.”  

Some Democrats and political experts say attack ads depicting Democrats as soft on crime are designed to scare white suburban voters and sow division along racial lines, which they argue was what Tuberville intended when he declared that Democrats “want to take over what you got” and “want reparations because they think that people that do the crime are owed that.”  

Nevada Senate Republican candidate Adam Laxalt has hit Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) for being soft on crime and attended the weekend rally but didn’t comment on Tuberville’s statement. The Laxalt campaign did not respond to a request for comment.   

Brandon Scholz, a Wisconsin-based Republican strategist, rejected the charge that Republicans are sounding racist dog whistles by hitting Democrats for being weak on crime.   

“It’s not new, it’s been out there since campaigns were putting out crime-related ads weeks ago, months ago,” he said of the criticism of GOP tactics. “It’s the kind of response you could expect to hear from campaigns that are the targets of those ads.” 

But he stressed that the GOP ads are based on facts and public statements. 

“If it’s based on something somebody has said, that’s a fact. You can’t get away from that,” he said. “In Wisconsin, at least the ads that I’ve seen, appear to be based on votes, bills’ introduction, statements, positions.”  

“It’s all fair game,” he added.  

Scholz said he didn’t see Tuberville’s comments and argued that Wisconsin voters aren’t paying much attention to what an Alabama senator is saying at a campaign rally in another state.  

Critics, however, say Tuberville’s attack went well beyond stating the facts. 

NAACP President Derrick Johnson described the rhetoric as “very dangerous messaging” in an interview on Wednesday, arguing the comments played into racist stereotypes “that could cause harm against African Americans.”  

“Tuberville knows very well that African Americans are no more prone to crime than Republicans, as they have demonstrated in this current atmosphere,” he told The Hill.  

Desmond Jagmohan, who teaches political science at the University of California, Berkeley, also argued Tuberville’s comments were an attempt to “frame African Americans as a criminal element,” while appealing to racial fears among his base.  

“He’s also pointing out to redistributive politics as itself a form of crime, basically, stealing from whites and giving to African Americans, and that’s a kind of enduring racist trope,” Jagmohan argued.  

The remarks, Jagmohan and others say, are just the latest example of Republicans racializing their crime messaging in the current campaign season.  

Republicans have pummeled two Democrats, Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes and Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, especially hard on crime.   

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is hitting Barnes, who is Black, as “a dangerous Democrat” for supporting the end of cash bail and linking his policy views to the Waukesha Christmas parade attack, where a man released from jail on bail killed six people with his sports utility vehicle.  

In Pennsylvania, Republican candidate Mehmet Oz has criticized Fetterman for employing two brothers on his campaign, Dennis and Lee Horton, who were convicted of second-degree murder and later granted clemency.   

Another ad paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and approved by Oz slams Fetterman for expressing support for releasing more people from prison and eliminating life sentences for murderers.   

These advertisements conjure images of the infamous “Willie Horton” ad ran to help support former President George H.W. Bush’s campaign bid in 1988. The ad sought to take aim at Democrat Michael Dukakis’s record on crime as governor of Massachusetts by focusing on Horton, a Black man convicted of murder, who committed crimes while out of prison on furlough.   

“They want to divert attention from Roe as much as possible for suburban women in particular,” said Ray Zaccaro, a Democratic strategist, making reference to how the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights case, has pushed many women voters away from the GOP.  

“The idea of the threat of Black men toward White women is something that’s been used in racially charged campaigns since Reconstruction,” he said.  

Chris Hartline, a spokesman for the Senate Republican campaign arm, said the attacks on Barnes and Fetterman are fair because of their statements on the record.  

“We’re using their own words. If Mandela Barnes and John Fetterman don’t like it, they should go back in time and not embrace stupid ideas that voters are rejecting,” he said.  

A recent advertisement released by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has been raising eyebrows this month for its racial undertones.   

In the ad, Kennedy addresses violent crime he says is “surging” in Louisiana, while railing against so-called “woke leaders” that “blame the police.” The video features a montage of pictures depicting protesters with signs with phrases like “Black Lives Matter” and “defund the police,” as well as videos of people in hoodies and ski masks holding guns.  

“I voted against the early release of violent criminals, and I opposed defunding the police because I know the difference between criminals and their innocent victims,” Kennedy says at the end of the video. “Look, if you hate cops just because they’re cops, the next time you’re in trouble, call a crackhead.”  

The video instantly went viral earlier this month and drew criticism from experts and advocates who have blasted it as racist and say it perpetuates harmful stereotypes about addiction.  

“You can have a debate about crime and it not necessarily be racial,” Andra Gillespie, an associate political science professor at Emory University, said on Wednesday. “But when you end with ‘call a crackhead,’ that’s when I think we have to think about what our cultural image of a crackhead is.”  

In another ad that has gotten attention, Barnes could be seen discussing reallocation of police funds in a faded clip next to the words “defund the police” spray-painted on a wall. The shot then pans to another wall decorated with street art and homicide statistics for Milwaukee.  

The video, paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, ends right after panning back to Barnes’s photo, before the narrator reads against ominous music in the backdrop: “Mandela Barnes, a dangerous Democrat.”   

National Urban League President Marc Morial accused the ads of equating “Black people with crime.”  

“This is nothing new,” he told The Hill on Wednesday. “This is the same type of thing that led to the overreaction during the war on drugs and mass incarceration, which has damaged the Black community so severely.”  

“I think it shocks people, because people thought it ended … But what we see is people are taking an old suit out of the closet, taking it to the dry cleaners and putting it on,” he added.