(PatriotWise.com) — A Missouri judge ruled last Friday that the longshot gubernatorial candidate with links to the Ku Klux Klan will be allowed to remain on the Republican primary ballot.
Circuit Court Judge Cotton Walker of Cole County, Missouri, rejected a request by the state GOP to remove candidate Darrell McClanahan from the August primary ballot.
Dave Roland, McClanahan’s attorney, said Friday’s ruling confirmed that party officials do not have “unlimited discretion” to decide who can appear on the ballot.
McClanahan is running against Jay Ashcroft, the current Secretary of State, Lt. Governor Mike Kehoe, state Senator Bill Eigel, and other Republicans seeking the nomination to replace outgoing Republican Governor Mike Parson.
The longshot candidate describes himself as “pro-white” but has insisted that he is not a racist or antisemite. While the state GOP accepted his party dues when he filed in February to run in the primary, it later condemned his candidacy after photos appeared online showing McClanahan giving the Nazi salute, which McClanahan later confirmed were accurate.
Judge Walker said in his decision that the GOP had made it clear that it did not endorse McClanahan’s candidacy and could continue to disavow him or his opinions publicly even with his name on the ballot.
While the state party said it did not know who McClanahan was when he first filed to run, the longshot candidate said the GOP did know his beliefs because he previously ran for the Senate in 2022.
Roland suggested that the state GOP did not intend to win the case, arguing that the case was filed so the party could publicly distance itself from racism and antisemitism and that a court challenge was the best way to do it.
Last year, McClanahan sued the Anti-Defamation League, claiming that the group defamed him when it described him as a white supremacist in a post on its website. In his complaint, McClanahan said he was a “pro-white man” and was not a member of the KKK despite receiving an honorary one-year membership. He admitted that he attended a “Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony” which he claimed the ADL “falsely described as a cross burning.”
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