The Wisconsin Republican Party on Monday was forced to backtrack after posting an attack on the state’s Black lieutenant governor — and used a picture of an entirely different Black man who looks nothing like him.
Mandela Barnes, a Democrat, is currently running for governor to replace outgoing Gov. Tony Evers.
“Francesca Hong, Mandela Barnes, and other radical progressives are trying to destroy our state,” wrote the X account of the Wisconsin GOP. “From wanting to defund police, raise property taxes, and bring socialism to Wisconsin, it is clear that they are out of touch with the needs of Wisconsin families.”
The problem: the man in the image is not Barnes, as a number of commenters were quick to point out.
“That’s not Mandela Barnes…” wrote Wisconsin-based politics editor Dan Shafer.
Shortly, the account deleted the picture and reposted with an image that used an actual photo of Barnes. However, the mentions of that post were flooded with screenshots of the original, refusing to let them forget the blunder.
This is far from an isolated incident. In recent years, a number of political attack ads have artificially darkened the skin tone of Black candidates in pictures, including ads against Barnes himself when he was running for Senate in 2022.
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