President Trump is inserting himself into North Carolina’s pivotal U.S. Senate race, and he is reviving an infamous racist attack ad to do so. As Democrats seek to take control of Congress, Trump is using a decades-old racist dog whistle to do so.
Trump references ‘Willie Horton’ in attack against Roy Cooper
Trump spoke Wednesday night at a Republican campaign rally in Gastonia, North Carolina on behalf of Michael Whatley, the GOP candidate for the state’s open Senate seat. Trump used his appearance to attack Whatley’s Democratic opponent, popular former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. In criticizing Cooper, Trump referenced a Republican attack ad from the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign. “Years ago in Massachusetts, there was a governor named Dukakis, you remember? Who had a very substantial lead for president. He was going to win easily. But he allowed a man named Willie Horton out of jail. Willie Horton was a bad guy, really bad guy. Same thing as this, same, same exact thing,” Trump said, comparing Dukakis to Cooper. Trump then exaggerated the Horton story, claiming “and on his first day out, he raped and murdered, raped and murdered again and again. And he ended up killing three women.” “Overnight, Dukakis took a rousing lead of 15 points and lost the election in a landslide because of that one advertisement. They put it on, just like we’re putting it on, because we have to make sure Michael Whatley gets into office instead of this guy,” Trump declared.
Willie Horton ad was part of racist ‘southern strategy’ to scare, sway white voters
Trump’s comments referenced an ad run by a PAC supporting the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush against Dukakis, contrasting Bush’s support for the death penalty to the position of Dukakis, who according to the ad “not only opposes the death penalty; he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison.” The ad continues “one was Willie Horton, who was serving a life sentence for murder when he escaped from a prison work furlough program, after which he kidnapped a couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping the woman before being caught again.” The ad has widely been credited as a significant reason behind Bush’s victory over Dukakis. The commercial, which prominently featured an imposing mug shot of Horton, is also widely seen as a racist dog whistle, associating Dukakis with an idea of dangerous Black men. This type of tactic, often referred to as the “southern strategy,” became a notorious aspect of GOP campaigns for Ronald Reagan and then for Bush.
Deceptive ads increase as Cooper leads important Senate race
Trump’s attempts to associate Cooper with Horton are part of a larger GOP effort to tie the Democrat to violent crimes. During Wednesday’s rally, Trump also referenced the 2025 killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska; Decarlos Brown Jr, a Black man with a history of schizophrenia, has been charged with the seemingly random attack on a commuter train in Charlotte. As Blavity previously reported, Donald Hayes, a Black North Carolina man whose teenage son Shemar was murdered, recently called out a conservative PAC for using his story to falsely imply that Cooper had released his son’s killer from prison during the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither Brown nor the Shemar Hayes’ killer were released from prison by Cooper. The misleading attacks against Cooper come as the Democrat holds a commanding lead in the race to replace retiring GOP Senator Thom Tillis. The North Carolina race is seen as key for determining control of the Senate, even as Democrats are likely to retake the House of Representatives.
Given Cooper’s popularity in North Carolina and his lead as Election Day approaches, it is unclear if the “southern strategy” will work against him as it did against Dukakis. But the fact that Republicans are attempting such race baiting tactics, with President Trump boldly reviving the condemned dog whistling strategy, speaks to the stakes of November’s election and the lengths that some political actors are willing to go in order to sway voters.