With white supremacists drawn into political mainstream, David Duke declares victory
KENNER, La. David Duke worked the Louisiana gun show like a preacher pursuing souls, cornering potential voters as they picked over firearms and ammo.
The robes are gone and the rhetoric is softer than during his grand wizard days. But Duke has not shed his relentless proselytizing for the white race, even though voters have repeatedly rejected the former Ku Klux Klan leader's attempts to regain public office.
Duke is undeterred. As he sees it, this is the moment. After last running for election in 1999, he's back with a long-shot bid for Louisiana's open U.S. Senate seat.
And his reason for optimism is clear: Donald Trump.
"I love it," said Duke, 66, tearing into a chicken garlic pizza at a nearby restaurant later. "The fact that Donald Trump's doing so well, it proves that I'm winning. I am winning."
Trump's surprise rise to become the GOP presidential nominee, built largely on a willingness to openly criticize minority groups and tap into long-simmering racial divisions, has re-energized white supremacist groups and drawn them into mainstream American politics like nothing seen in decades.
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