Louisiana is known for its colorful political characters, and the state is seeing the past resurface as former state representative and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke runs for U.S. Senate.
Duke announced his run for David Vitter’s vacant Senate seat on July 22, one day after Donald Trump was named the official GOP presidential nominee. After submitting the paperwork for his candidacy, Duke, a self-proclaimed white nationalist and anti-Semite, said he “believes his time has come”.
Vitter decided not to seek re-election.
“The people of this country, the patriotic, decent, God-fearing people of this country, are now right with me,” Duke said, according to the Associated Press.
Roger Villere, chairman of the Republican Party of Louisiana, issued a statement denouncing Duke in July, saying, “David Duke’s history of hate marks a dark stain on Louisiana’s past and has no place in our current conversation.”
In addition to being labeled a white supremacist, Duke also served 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to tax and mail fraud in 2002.
Manship School of Mass Communication professor Robert Mann has covered Louisiana politics since the 1980s and is a political columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
According to Mann, Duke’s motives for running could be to raise his profile again and put him back in the public eye, to give him possible respectability and fundraise.
Professor T. Wayne Parent specializes in southern and Louisiana politics at the University.
“I don’t expect him to run that well this time. I think his brand of politics — the fact that he’s associated with the KKK — is more offensive now than it was 20 years ago,” Parent said. “I think racial politics have changed in rhetoric over the years.”
Duke is no stranger to state politics. After switching to the Republican party in 1988, he served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 1992. Following the term, Duke has run several unsuccessful campaigns for Senate, the House of Representatives, and his now-infamous gubernatorial race against former Governor Edwin Edwards.
Although the voters haven’t necessarily changed in the 20 years since Duke was a figure in state politics, Duke wasn’t a felon then, and people believed he was sincere and agreed with his platform, Mann said.
Parent said Duke’s popularity in the early ‘90s can be attributed to the state’s economic turmoil at the time, and Duke’s “kick-you-in-the-face campaign” attracted voters, similar but identical to Trump’s situation now.
Parent and Mann said they are doubtful Duke can gather the support needed to overcome the other 23 candidates running who “don’t differ from [Duke] that much, but aren’t seen as criminals or vile racists,” Mann said.
While it’s possible Duke could gain the traction to slip into the runoff, Mann said he doesn’t see how Duke, who won’t be in the Senate race debates, will have a chance at the run-off. Duke doesn’t have the media coverage he did in past elections and doesn’t have a way to get his message to the public.
“I think he’s washed up. He’s a shell of his former self,” Mann said. “I think there were a lot of people who thought he was for real, and his conviction exposed him as a con artist. I think the kind of numbers he needs are no longer there for him.”
Mann was former Sen. J. Bennett Johnston’s press secretary in 1990, when Johnston won his campaign for re-election against Duke. Duke received 43 percent of the vote in the 1990 election.
Duke last ran for the Senate in 1996, and did not qualify for the run-off election with only 11.5 percent of the vote.
Louisiana politics have been characterized by pageantry and controversy since their inception, Parent argues in his book “Inside the Carnival: Unmasking Louisiana Politics.”
Parent said unless Duke makes it to the run-off, he doesn’t think his race will mean a regression in state politics or a return to the pageantry that has galvanized the state.
Duke recently pledged his support to Trump, saying on his radio show earlier this year that voting against Trump was “treason to your heritage.” Trump’s campaign decried Duke’s endorsement.
Mann likened Trump to Duke, calling the two “kindred spirits.” Duke thinks there is a natural alliance between Trump voters and the people that once were his voters, Mann said.
“He sees himself in Trump, and sees Trump’s message being very similar to his and thinks he can ride Trump’s coattails,” Mann said.
Parent said Duke’s support of Trump may affect voters at the margins, specifically southern Republicans who are young and educated.
“I don’t think David Duke appeals to people who are more highly educated or who are younger,” Parent said. “Younger voters, certainly my students who are consistently Republican, are struggling with Trump for the reasons that he is associated with people like David Duke.”
Congressional elections, especially during the presidential election, are more about voters’ political ideology than individual candidates, Mann said.
“It’s really people going to the polls and voting for the party and not so much the person,” he said.
David Duke did not respond to requests for comment.