These are some of the most racist political ads of 2018

When President Trump rallies his base by demonizing the “migrant caravan,” he’s continuing an American tradition that dates to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1789, which forced the mostly European immigrants to wait an extra nine years before being allowed to vote.

But in stoking fears, Trump’s setting a tone for the rest of the nation. Candidates around the country have spent more than $150 million on immigration-themed ads this electoral cycle, more than three times what was spent in 2016 and five times the last midterm election in 2014, according to Kantar Media.

In this year’s midterms we’re seeing more diversity in the nation’s candidates than ever before — including Asian-American, Indian-American and Middle Eastern-American candidates — and they’ve been subjected to ads that play up racist themes, some overt as well as more subtle dog whistles.

“We have seen hate happen in political ads and messaging for generations,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “I think today what’s different is social media has everyone so wired and the news is coming at a pace that’s never before been seen.”

Lara Schwartz, director of American University’s Project on Civil Discourse, said that in addition to the president’s own rhetoric, the nation’s gerrymandered districts have also likely added to more of these types of ads playing in House races from coast to coast and social media has made these types of ads more visible than ever before.

“I think one thing that’s new is partly that we’re much more aware of it,” Schwartz said, pointing out that the infamous “Willie Horton” ad attacking Democrat Michael Dukakis happened 30 years ago.

And yet in 2018 they’re hard to miss, even if you try to look away.

In southern New Jersey, Rhodes Scholar and former Obama-era national security adviser Andrew Kim, a Democrat, has faced mailers depicting dead fish on ice that use a typical Chinese-menu font (Kim is actually Korean-American) to try to paint him as an outsider.

“When there’s a mailer that goes out that uses Chinese-takeout font, you know that certainly raises eyebrows. And as the father of two Asian-American baby boys, that’s alarming,” Kim said, sitting in his headquarters recently with a rainbow-colored “DISARM HATE” poster on the wall behind him.

Those flyers were sent out by the state GOP party, so Kim’s opponent, two-term Republican Tom MacArthur, has been able to distance himself from them, though his earlier campaign ads did say Kim is “not one of us.”

In Texas, in a suburban Houston district, the Fort Bend County Republican Party took out an ad in a local paper aimed at the Hindu population prominently featuring the Hindu deity Ganesha, which has the head of an elephant. The ad against Democratic challenger Sri Preston Kulkarni asked “Would you worship a donkey or an elephant? The choice is yours.”

That brought a rebuke from Kulkarni on Facebook, where he wrote “equating Hindus’ worship of Ganesh with a political party’s symbol is wrong and promotes inaccurate stereotypes about the Hindu-American community.” The county GOP eventually issued an apology.

That 22nd District is currently represented by five-term Republican incumbent Pete Olson, who, after some delay, said the ad "promotes inaccurate stereotypes." But the stigma seems to be why the first line in Kulkarni’s campaign biography prominently states his immigration status of American by birth: “Sri Preston Kulkarni is a proven leader who has been serving his family, community, and country for his entire life.”

Then there are the ads trying to link Democratic candidates with foreign-sounding names to terrorism.

In Ohio, outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan’s PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, has been using the more than $126 million its raised to inject its own xenophobic charges into the race between four-term GOP incumbent Steve Chabot and his Democratic opponent Aftab Pureval, a former Special Assistant U.S. Attorney and County Clerk of Courts.

The ad goes there: “…worse than Pureval’s lies is his hypocrisy. Pureval’s lobbying firm made millions helping Libya reduce payments owed to families of Americans killed by Libyan terrorism. Selling out Americans? Aftab Pureval can’t be trusted.”

Chabot never disavowed the ad. His campaign merely explaining to voters that they aren’t legally allowed to coordinate with PACs, which is true. But candidates are allowed to call BS when they see it, and they merely chose to lash out at the media for daring to fact-check such an egregious ad.

In a large district outside of San Diego, embattled five-term Republican Duncan Hunter has been standing by his own xenophobism. After being handed a 47-page indictment from federal prosecutors, he was on the ropes and unleashed an ad attacking his Democratic opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar.

“Ammar Campa-Najjar is working to infiltrate Congress … His grandfather masterminded the Munich Olympic massacre. His father said they ‘all deserve to die,’” the voice actor reads in the 30-second spot.

Campa-Najjar has distanced himself in every way from his grandfather, who died 16 years before he was born, but still, the Hunter campaign hasn’t backed down.

African-American gubernatorial candidates are looking to make history in their states, so long as they can withstand race-baiting campaigning. In Florida Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis got into trouble early when he accused his black opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, of trying to “monkey this up.” And Gillum’s campaign continues to face a string of racist robocalls. Similarly, Georgia contender Stacey Abrams has endured racist tweets and slurs hurled at her outside some of her events.

And even two African-American Republicans running this cycle claim they’ve felt racism in their contests. In Utah, two-term incumbent Mia Love has complained Democrats “do not like the fact that I am a Black female Republican.” Up in New Hampshire veteran and former police chief Eddie Edwards has accused the head of the state's Democratic Party of racism for tweeting that he was “unqualified.”

In New York, former Rhodes Scholar Antonio Delgado has faced ads playing on repeat highlighting his former attempt at becoming a hip-hop artist.

At one of his events, we ran into a 9-year-old African-American boy named Logan who was rocking a Hello My Name is Slim Shady shirt who we just had to talk to. Turns out it was those ads that spurred him to get involved in Delgado’s campaign.

“I kind of knew what they were pointing at when they said ‘He used to be a rapper – not fit for Congress,’” Logan told VICE News. What the ads really mean, he said: “He’s black: He can’t be in Congress.”

Logan can’t vote, but seeing those ads fired him up. So besides coming out to meet Delgado, he’s been phone banking for the candidate. For Logan, who says he’s now contemplating making his own run for office in the future, it’s also personal.

“It also was just like, come on, I’m trying to listen to music,” Logan said. “Why you making me angry when I’m trying to relax?”

Cover: Screen shot of Re. Duncan Hunter's (R-CA) attack on Democratic opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar. (YouTube)