Appointed Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler ran a Facebook ad last week which artificially darkened the skin of Rev. Raphael Warnock, her Democratic challenger in today’s highly-anticipated runoff election.
According to reports, Loeffler has used the same two clips at least two other times, but her campaign reportedly spent 10 times more money boosting the darker version on Facebook.
In the altered ad, titled “Beyond Radical Raphael,” Warnock is noticeably darker than the original, dubbed “Too Radical. Too Corrupt.”
According to reports, Loeffler spent up to $45,000 on the ad boosts.
Warnock’s campaign told theGrio its officials weren’t shocked at the incumbent senator’s effort.
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“Given that Kelly Loeffler has run the single most negative campaign in Georgia history,” Warnock spokesperson Terrence Clark said in a statement, “there is no level she could stoop to that would surprise us.”
The Loeffler campaign did not immediately respond to theGrio’s request for comment.
Loeffler, 50, is the wealthiest member of Congress, boasting a net worth of more than $800 million dollars. She is married to Jeff Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.
The co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream team, appointed to her Senate seat by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, came into Congress in January of 2020.
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Loeffler began dumping stocks in her portfolio after a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic in late January. Weeks later, she sold more than $3.1 million in stock between the day of a coronavirus briefing and the market crash related to the pandemic.
She has relied on calling her Democratic competitor a “radical Socialist” throughout the runoff campaign, which came about after neither she nor Warnock won a majority of Georgians’ vote in November’s election. The same is true for Republican Georgia Sen. David Perdue and his Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff.
Read More: As Georgians vote in senate runoffs, Trump’s election offense looms
In a final show of support to President Donald Trump, Loeffler vowed to object to the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win on Wednesday.
“On January 6th, I will vote to give President Trump and the American people the fair hearing they deserve and support the objection to the Electoral College certification process,” Loeffler wrote in a statement on her Twitter account Monday afternoon.
Today’s runoff election will determine which political party will hold control of the U.S. Senate until at least 2022.
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