A leaked group chat with numerous racist, antisemitic and misogynistic text messages among young conservatives engulfed the Miami-Dade County Republican Party in scandal on Thursday.
The WhatsApp chat, which the party secretary created last fall for students at Florida International University in Miami, quickly devolved into slurs against Black and Jewish people, The Miami Herald reported on Wednesday. Screenshots of some messages were also published by The Floridian, a conservative website. One of the students in the WhatsApp group verified the authenticity of the chat and messages to The New York Times.
The slur-laden chat includes a lengthy message about killing Black people and a separate warning about not getting sexually involved with a Jewish woman, according to the screenshots. The Herald also found messages referencing Hitler’s politics, insulting gay people and referring to women with offensive terms.
The chat is under criminal investigation by Florida International University, according to Maydel Santana, a spokeswoman.
The secretary of the county Republican Party who created the chat, Abel Alexander Carvajal, is a law student at Florida International. Members of the party’s board asked for his resignation when they convened on an emergency basis Wednesday night, said State Representative Juan Carlos Porras of Miami, a board member.
The scandal is the latest example of extremism rankling establishment Republicans in Florida as the party has consolidated power in a state that was once a political battleground. Representative Byron Donalds, a Naples Republican who is the front-runner in his party’s primary for governor, and who is Black, has faced racist insults from a long-shot opponent whose young, male supporters have given him online notoriety.
Last fall, a similar scandal roiled elected Republicans and the leaders of groups for young party activists in New York, Vermont, Arizona and Kansas, after thousands of racist and homophobic messages sent over Telegram were also leaked.
Leaders of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party denounced the offensive messages in the leaked Florida chat. In a statement, Mr. Porras, who is also a Republican state committeeman, said “hatred towards Jewish Americans, racist rhetoric, calls for violence, all these ideas have no place in our party, our state, or our country.”
Kevin Cooper, the local party chairman, said the party has started removal proceedings against Mr. Carvajal, saying his “words and actions” do not speak for the party.
Senator Rick Scott, a Republican, wrote on X on Thursday afternoon that the messages were “disgusting and cannot be tolerated,” adding, “Racists and antisemites are not welcome in the Republican Party.”
Mr. Carvajal, 23, did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday. He told The Herald that he had not seen many of the messages until the newspaper contacted him about them last week. The messages viewed by The Herald covered two and a half weeks from September to October.
Three other men who appear to have been heavily involved in the chat also did not respond to requests for comment from The Times.
Ms. Santana, the spokeswoman for Florida International University, said it “takes very seriously any allegation of discriminatory or threatening conduct.”
“The alleged conduct is under review and will be addressed in accordance with the university’s policies and applicable law,” she said in a statement.
If Mr. Carvajal does not resign from his position in the Miami-Dade County Republican Party, his fellow board members have asked the Republican Party of Florida for his removal. In a statement on Thursday, the state party did not call for Mr. Carvajal’s resignation but called the comments in the chat “repugnant” and said the matter was under “internal review.”
“The Republican Party of Florida consistently stands against racism, antisemitism, and bigotry in all of its hateful forms of expression,” the statement said.
The Miami-Dade County Republican Party has had extremists in its ranks before. Four years ago, several members of the Proud Boys secured seats on its executive committee with the apparent goal of radicalizing and influencing local politics.
Georgia Gee contributed research.
Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico.
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