Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke announces plans to run for Senate in Louisiana

(Image credit: AP Photo/Burt Steel)

published 22 July 2016

Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke announced Friday that he is running for Senate in the state of Louisiana. A Holocaust denier and white nationalist, Duke served one term as a state representative of a New Orleans suburb over 20 years ago; he was unsuccessful in beating Democrat Edwin Edwards in a gubernatorial race in 1991:

In his 1991 campaign for governor against Edwin W. Edwards, Mr. Duke largely avoided explicitly racial campaigning, appealed to the frustrations and resentments of white voters and won more than 60 percent of the white vote while losing in a runoff election. Two decades later, much of his campaign has merged with the political mainstream [in Louisiana], and rather than a bad memory from the past, Mr. Duke remains a window into some of the murkier currents in the state's politics ... [The New York Times]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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