As President Donald Trump tries to convince voters that Democrats have let crime run amok, he’s digging into the country’s political past to reference one of the most controversial campaign advertisements that relied heavily on racist tropes.
asserted
that → try → tropes
During a campaign stop Wednesday in Gastonia, North Carolina, to stump for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump resurrected a 1988 George H.W. Bush presidential campaign ad featuring Willie Horton, a Black man convicted of rape and assault after his release through a Massachusetts prison furlough program.
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Trump → stump → program
A grainy black-and-white prison photo of Horton was used in the ad targeting then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was ahead of Bush in the polls.
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who → use → polls
On Wednesday, Trump evoked the Horton ad in an effort to convince voters Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper, Whatley’s opponent in the Senate race, is soft on crime.
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Cooper → evoke → crime
“Willie Horton was a bad guy, really bad guy,” Trump said, before comparing Dukakis’s release of Horton to the pretrial release of a Black man who faces a murder charge for last year’s killing of a white Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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who → say → Charlotte
“Same thing as this, same as, same exact thing,” the president told the crowd in Gastonia.
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president → tell → Gastonia
It’s the second time Trump has invoked Willie Horton while campaigning for his party.
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Trump → ’ → party
Last month during a speech in Las Vegas, Trump called the Charlotte killing a “Willie Horton — modern day” tragedy.
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Trump → call → killing
“After the Willie Horton ad dropped, Bush established a lead in the polls and never looked back,” said Andra Gillespie, political scientist at Emory University outside Atlanta.
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Gillespie → drop → Atlanta
“They showed the picture, and you ascribed race onto it.
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you → show → it
It wasn’t sufficiently condemned as racism.”
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It → condemn → racism
A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, which organized the Gastonia campaign rally, defended Trump’s reference to Horton.
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which → organize → Horton
“Roy Cooper emptied prisons and released thousands of violent monsters onto North Carolina streets,” RNC National Press Secretary Natalie Baldassarre said in a statement to The Associated Press.
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Baldassarre → empty → Press
“The results had deadly consequences, and every Democrat who supports abolishing or defunding the police, paroling criminals, and implementing lax bail policies will have to answer for their dangerous records in November.
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who → have → November
Trump paints North Carolina as a ‘dangerous state’
Wednesday’s rally referenced the Aug. 22, 2025, killing of white 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in Charlotte.
Decarlos Brown Jr., who is Black, faces murder and other charges in Zarutska’s stabbing, which was captured on video.
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which → paint → video
Court records showed that at the time of the attack, Brown had 14 prior cases in Mecklenburg County, including serving five years for robbery with a dangerous weapon.
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Brown → show → weapon
Doctors had diagnosed him with schizophrenia.
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Doctors → diagnose → schizophrenia
Republicans and other influential voices in Trump’s Make America Great Again movement claimed the attack showed how Democratic elected leaders in large cities across the U.S. failed to protect residents, while some conservative commentators suggested Democrats were ignoring an unfounded “black-on-white” crime problem.
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Democrats → make → problem
“He should have been locked up for many, many years,” Trump said Wednesday of Brown.
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Trump → lock → Brown
“Nobody used to think of North Carolina as a dangerous state, criminally dangerous,” Trump added while blaming Cooper.
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Trump → use → Cooper
Now, it’s one of the most violent, one of the worst in the whole nation.
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it → ’ → nation
According to 2024 FBI crime data, North Carolina ranked 19th for statewide violent-crime rates in a 50-state comparison.
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Carolina → accord → comparison
During the Gastonia rally, a mosaic of mug shots was displayed on a large screen for the crowd.
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mosaic → display → crowd
Trump claimed Cooper had cut a deal with “radical activists” to release “some of the worst criminals in the nation into North Carolina.”
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Cooper → claim → Carolina
“He released these people.
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He → release → people
This is just a small group of them,” the president said, pointing to the mug shots that overwhelmingly featured Black people.
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that → say → people
Although it is unclear under what circumstances the people in the mug shots were released, state corrections officials have said Brown was not released early from prison or under Cooper’s COVID-era prisoner-release settlement that Trump referenced.
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Trump → release → that
Before fatally stabbing Zarutska, according to court records, Brown had been on a pretrial release over a misdemeanor offense that was ordered by a magistrate after Cooper left office.
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Cooper → stab → office
Republicans are under pressure to win over swayable voters as the November midterms approach with Democrats pushing to gain control of the House, the Senate, or both.
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Democrats → win → House
Some political strategists say part of the ploy of adding Horton to the North Carolina Senate campaign is to rile up Trump’s base.
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part → say → base
“He’s tapping into the anger to remind Republican voters of what he thinks their first principles are in hopes that will be successful for Republican candidates,” Gillespie said.
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Gillespie → tap → candidates
“He’s doing this to try and divert attention away from criticism of how he’s governing at the moment,” she added.
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she → do → moment
“Democrats want to make the story of this election Trump’s low approval numbers, the war in Iran, inflation, being preoccupied with things that don’t make a whole lot of sense when there are really serious things going on in the country.”
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that → want → country
Dewey Clayton, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Louisville, said Trump and other Republicans may be thinking that what worked before in the 2016 and 2024 elections presumably will work again in this year’s midterms.
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worked → say → midterms
“It was very effective,” Clayton said.
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Clayton → say → ?
“You do not necessarily have to look at it as racial, in and of itself, although (race) clearly becomes a component.
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race → have → itself
I’m sure he had consultants that were basically saying this is tried and true.”
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this → ’m → consultants
The GOP may need the push in November, Gillespie warns.
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Gillespie → need → November
“I think the motivation by going back to these old strategies is there is real concern about Republican enthusiasm and you might see lower Republican turnout,” she said.
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she → think → turnout
Rhetoric attempts to divert voters’ attention from rising costs
The tactic speaks to desperation by Trump and the Whatley campaign, according to Morgan Jackson, a partner with Nexus Strategies in Raleigh.
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tactic → attempt → Raleigh
…and 9 more, not listed.
The Aporia
