Individuals who belong to extremist organizations or harbor extremist views employ a variety of strategies to influence mainstream society, one of which is running for public office. Once elected, these candidates are able to affect laws and public policy from the inside as a part of the political system. Using the data provided by the Exposing Extremism in Elections project, concerned voters, community leaders, political parties, public officials, and businesses can learn about the ideology of these candidates and the individuals they associate with.
The SPLC Action Fund has compiled a list of candidates running for office who appear to have ties to extremism. These ties take different forms – seemingly sympathetic retweets, endorsements, organization memberships or other indications of alignment with philosophies dangerous to participative democracy. We believe that providing this information to the general public will expose the ties these candidates have to extremist groups or ideologies and contribute to an informed voter base.
What information does the project provide?
The Exposing Extremism in Elections project provides information about extremist-tied candidates, new or incumbent, running for public office at local, state and federal levels. The project provides detailed information about the candidate, their election status and any apparent ties they have to extremist groups and/or ideologies. You will find candidates with apparent relationships to, or support from, both hate and antigovernment extremist movements, as well as an array of extremist groups and ideologies. Such candidates are running for all levels of office, all across the country, and in almost every state – extremist-tied candidates are not isolated to any geographic area.
