Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke announced his candidacy for the United States Senate back in July. Now the white supremacist, convicted felon, anti-Semite, and Nazi sympathizer has secured enough support to qualify for a televised debate at a historically black college.
Duke is one of 20 candidates in the race, who needed to collect at least five percent in a poll taken for Raycom Media to qualify for the debate. Duke made the cut with 5.1 percent, trailing behind Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy’s 24.2 per cent and Democrat Foster Campbell’s 18.9 per ent in the race for retiring GOP senator David Vitter’s seat.
Duke founded and led the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Louisiana back in the 1970s, naming himself the group’s grand wizard. Since then he has had an unsuccessful career in politics. He served a single term as a Republican Louisiana state representative, ran (and lost) in the presidential primaries in 1988 and 1992 and had failed campaigns for U.S. Senator, U.S. representative, Louisiana governor, and Louisiana state senator.
On November 2, he’ll join five other candidates to debate at Dillard University, a historically black college in New Orleans.
