SPLC Action Fund Releases New Report Showing Scale and Influence of Extremist Rhetoric in 2024 Political Campaigns

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Today, the SPLC Action Fund released “Exposing Extremism in Elections,” a new analysis of 2024 campaign communications that employ rhetoric crafted by extremist movements and the political hard right.

“America is at a political crossroads heading into the 2024 election with our participatory democracy at stake,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, Intelligence Project interim director, SPLC Action Fund. “Our report exposes the dangers of hard-right candidates who are increasingly and boldly running on the most extreme agenda. These candidates are laundering white nationalist and antigovernment ideology through campaign rhetoric in an effort to codify hate and conspiracies into law.”

The report shows how extremist rhetoric is being peddled in electoral campaigns at all levels of government. The analysis, conducted during in March and April of 2024, shows:

• More than two-thirds of campaign communications (69%) are derived from white nationalist ideology like the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, scapegoating of Jewish people for white social or political grievances and the demonization of LGBTQ+ people.
• Claims of a migrant “invasion” accounted for 78% of all anti-immigrant rhetoric.
• Anti-LGBTQ ideology animates rhetorical attacks on public education. In more than half of communications (55.5%), candidates used narratives either endorsed by or affiliated with hate groups like Gays Against Groomers or antigovernment groups like Moms for Liberty.
• In the majority of communications when male supremacists rhetoric is used (86%),it appeared alongside Christian supremacist rhetoric to target reproductive rights, instrumentalizing abortion as a mechanism of control over pregnant people and their bodies.
• Election fraud conspiracies mirroring the “Big Lie” were used by about half (43%) of sheriff candidates who are affiliated with the antigovernment Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA).

The SPLC Action Fund data analyzed 136 campaign communications from 108 different candidates across the country. More than half of the campaign communications come from candidates in either the Southeast (31%) or Southwest (25%). 184 extremist narratives are represented in these campaign communications, demonstrating how extremist ideologies frequently overlap and reinforce one another in campaigns. 43 hate and antigovernment groups are represented among the candidates for office. In many cases, a single candidate is connected to multiple organizations. Three candidates represented in the dataset were prosecuted for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

“We hope this report serves as a resource for voters to evaluate candidates’ positions and plans for the offices they seek to hold — and to unequivocally reject the hard right’s anti-democracy movement at the ballot box this November. The future of our democracy hangs in the balance,” Carroll Rivas concluded.