Report: Stephen Miller’s Group Is Running a White-Grievance Ad Campaign in Georgia Ahead of the Midterms

An insidious radio ad campaign has reportedly taken hold in some of the most high-profile media markets of this midterm cycle, accusing Joe Biden’s administration of fomenting “antiwhite bigotry.” “When did racism against white people become okay?” asks a narrator, according to a recording obtained by Politico, before falsely accusing the White House of putting “white people last in line for COVID relief funds” and offering disaster aid “to nonwhite citizens first.”

A disclosure at the end of the radio spot states that it is funded by America First Legal (AFL), an organization spearheaded by none other than Stephen Miller, the former White House anti-immigration czar under Donald Trump, who, according to Politico, has quietly pushed these ads amplifying white grievances in parts of Georgia as well as in Tallahassee, Florida.

The ad accuses Democrats of blocking “access to medicine based on skin color” and concludes that explicit antiwhite policies have become widespread in both the private and public sectors. “Progressive corporations, airlines, universities all openly discriminate against white Americans,” the narrator states. “Racism is always wrong. The left’s antiwhite bigotry must stop. We are all entitled to equal treatment under law.”

Given Miller’s past history of promoting white nationalist talking points, and as the architect of the Trump administration’s most hard-line policies, like banning immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and separating migrant children from their parents, his ongoing campaign to embolden aggrieved white voters in Georgia is particularly notable. Republicans had held the state’s seats in the US Senate for the greater part of the 2000s until Democrats flipped both seats and Biden won the state in 2020. That victory was thanks in part to both a surge in Black voter turnout from the Atlanta area, as well as an increase, generally, in Democratic votes among college-educated, older, and wealthier voters in the increasingly diverse suburbs around Atlanta. To take back the Senate, the GOP will likely need Herschel Walker, the embattled Republican challenging Democratic senator Raphael Warnock, to reverse the recent blue shift in Georgia. 

Miller’s group isn’t the only Trump-affiliated organization playing into racial tropes. During prime-time MLB playoff games this month, Citizens for Sanity—a PAC that, according to OpenSecrets, has three former Trump aides on its board who are also involved with Miller’s AFL—aired an ad claiming that John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, is fighting to “put predators back on the street.” The clip also includes a superimposed picture of Fetterman over security footage of a man firing a handgun into a street. In its other Pennsylvania ads, the group claims that “Joe Biden and the Democrats” have turned the state into “a hell of violence, bloodshed, and death,” and, in a Willie Horton-esque line of attack, blames an alleged murder on Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner’s criminal-justice reforms. In Arizona, the group has blanketed the pivotal Senate race between Democratic senator Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters with ads accusing Biden and Kelly of turning the state into a “third-world country” by supposedly allowing “drug dealers,” “sex traffickers,” and millions of “illegal immigrants” to roam free.

Miller formed America First Legal in 2021, with other top Trump White House officials like former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker on its board; the group launched with the mission of challenging Democrats’ and the Biden administration’s agenda in the courts. “As our educational advertisements explain, racism is always wrong—regardless of who it is targeted against,” Gene Hamilton, a vice president at America First Legal, told Politico of the radio ads. Many of the group’s efforts have been to undermine policies aimed at helping minorities, including a lawsuit against New York’s state government over the inclusion of race as a potential risk factor in COVID-19 guidelines, and another that targets federal aid for nonwhite farmers. The recent radio ads follow a similar script—this time in a swing state.