President Donald Trump’s handpicked Republican in a must-win North Carolina’s Senate race is facing an embarrassing controversy after a local GOP organization tried to photoshop a Confederate flag off one of their photos from a campaign event.
Michael Whatley, who is the former Republican National Committee chairman, showed up at the Henderson County Republican Party headquarters on October 12, where photos shared by the local party showed the flag prominently displayed in the room.
According to The Daily Beast, one of the photos captured a woman smiling while holding a sign for Whatley,y which read, “Protect Our Families.” The county GOP shared the photo on Facebook with the caption “Proud Supporter.”
However, they later deleted the post and shared a photoshopped version without the Confederate flag.
The attempt to clean up the image only brought more attention to it, as other photographs and video from the gathering show Whatley walking past the flag and smiling as he moved through the room.
It’s unclear how much Whatley or his team was involved, and the Henderson County GOP removed the image from its Facebook page.
The Anti-Defamation League notes that the Confederate flag is embraced by white supremacists, although some supporters of it argue that it is a symbol of Southern heritage. The Confederacy fought the Union in part to preserve slavery as a practice.
The latest embarrassment comes as Whatley is among many MAGA candidates fighting for power in a very tough election campaign against former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
An Elon University poll released earlier this week has the Democrat leading Whatley 52% to 39% among likely voters. And with a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points for likely voters, that spells bad news for the Trump pick.
Whatley was also caught in a different controversy last month when a registered sex offender delivered an opening prayer at a separate campaign gathering in New Bern. His campaign denied organizing the event or inviting the guests, but the Daily Beast reported that promotional materials and Whatley’s own remarks seemed to contradict that explanation.
Trump campaigned for Whatley this week but at one moment seemingly miscommunicated his support.
“It’s crazy, you’re going to send him to Washington to represent you,” Trump told supporters, referring to Cooper.
Now, the altered photo has created another attack line for Democrats, with Whatley already lagging behind in the polls.