Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Racist robocalls targeting Gillum are back.
TALLAHASSEE – A racist robocall with a narrator adopting a mocking black dialect pretending to be Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum is hitting Floridians’ voicemails again.
The call, which includes jungle noises in the background, has a disclaimer noting it came from The Road to Power, a white supremacist, anti-Semitic group linked to Scott Rhodes, an Idaho-based white nationalist. Gillum is the first African-American nominee for governor for a major party in Florida.
“I just received a very insulting robocall with a person "speaking in what they considered Negro dialect" impersonating Andrew Gillum, promising all the chicken feet we wanted,” Cynthia Moore Chestnut, a former Florida House member from Gainesville and Gillum supporter, posted Tuesday on Facebook. “What a low-down dirty trick! Do not be dismayed or distracted. Vote like your life depended on it to protect us from insulting folk like this!”
At a campaign stop in Orlando, Gillum’s Republican opponent Ron DeSantis condemned the calls.
“It’s disgusting,’’ he said. “I can tell you were not doing it, and I think the people who are doing it are doing it because they’re trying to create division . ... Let’s expose them so we know who’s doing it because I think it’s reprehensible.”
It’s the second time the call has been making the rounds in Florida. Gillum was targeted by The Road to Power robocalls just before his victory in the Democratic primary.
"These disgusting, abhorrent robocalls represent a continuation of the ugliest, most divisive campaign in Florida's history,” Gillum spokesman Geoff Burgan said. “We would hope that these calls, and the dangerous people who are behind them, are not given any more attention than they already have been.”