While those responsible claim innocent technical problems, the larger pattern is consistent. So is the effect: heightened white racial anxieties.
One of the ads, from the National Republican Senate Committee, ends with a shotthat brands Barnes, who is black, as “different” and “dangerous” as it pictures him alongside three congresswomen of color who are members of “The Squad,” none of whom has campaigned with him. For good measure, the state Republican party sent out a mailer in which the color of Barnes’s skin has clearly been darkened. Here’s a side-by-side comparison that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
A similar alteration recently happened with Stacey Abrams, who is facing off against Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp. His campaign team took an image of Abrams from an ad that she had run and made her complexion noticeably darker. Here’s a screenshot of a side-by-side that ran on WXIA-TV in Atlanta:
Kemp himself used a photo of Abrams in which her skin appears to have been darkened in a September 26 tweet:
Celebrity Stacey Abrams is running her campaign to cater to liberal elites, but her radical agenda for more mandates, higher taxes, and slashed police funding is wrong for hardworking Georgians. pic.twitter.com/jfg1gAUuhC
— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) September 26, 2022
Using unflattering images of one’s opponents has been a feature of campaigns since time immemorial. As WXIA reporter Doug Richards observed, “No politician worth their salt will make a campaign ad that makes their opponents look good. But making them look bad can be tricky, especially if the opponents are of two different races.”