Ahead of the Georgia runoff elections for both Senate seats on Jan. 5, Senator Kelly Loeffler released new attack ads that intentionally darkened Rev. Raphael Warnock's skin at an exaggerated level, according to data released by Facebook.
Loeffler spent up to $50,000 on a number of Facebook ads that took footage from Warnock's sermons and showed him with noticeably darker skin alongside misinformation about his past.
The ads are part of a larger trend among Republican candidates where they exaggerate features of their opponents that they believe will be perceived as negative or will reinforce their differences with white people.
David Perdue, the Republican candidate running for Georgia's other Senate seat, did something similar before the Nov. 3 election, releasing attack ads against his opponent, Jon Ossoff, that showed him with an enlarged nose. Ossoff is Jewish.
In an interview with Salon, Warnock campaign spokesperson Terrence Clark said the ads were part of a much larger wave of unfair attacks leveled against the reverend.
"Given that Kelly Loeffler has run the single most negative campaign in Georgia history, there is no level she could stoop to that would surprise us," Clark said.
The ads reached about 100,000 people, according to Facebook, and took footage from other Loeffler attacks, but simply lowered the tint.
The ads play into a larger social trend of discrimination against people with darker skin. Studies have shown that people of all races perceive those with darker skin to be associated with "immoral" acts, according to Scientific American.
Researchers describe this phenomena as the "bad is Black" effect, professor Adam Alter of New York University wrote in a 2016 study.
Last year, Senator Lindsay Graham did the same thing in attack ads against his opponent Jaime Harrison, darkening his skin in multiple ads.
“Lindsey Graham is playing a part in a 400-year history of an Old South that had no room for people who looked like me. Lindsey Graham might have darkened my face — but it’s Lindsey who the people of South Carolina can’t recognize,” Harrison said in a statement to The Hill.
Loeffler has done little to shy away from accusations of outright racism against her opponent. She has campaigned openly with former Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard Chester Doles and has turned the words "marxist" into a racialized dogwhistle term she uses incessantly to describe Warnock.
Despite the avalanche of attack ads coming in against both Warnock and Ossoff, both have taken a much more positive approach to campaigning, touting their own goals for the Senate if they win.
New South Super PAC founder Nse Ufot told Blavity in a statement that her group and others wanted to release ads that touted their candidates instead of ripping into their opponents.
“We are heading into the final days of these campaigns and it is clear that momentum is on Ossoff and Warnock’s side. We wanted to create an ad that conveys this energy – and one that would stand out and cut through the monotonous and negative ads that Republicans have inundated airwaves with," Ufot said. "The election is almost here, and Warnock, Ossoff, and Georgia Democrats are ready to win.”
