In a double-digit victory, Lauren Witzke won the Republican primary election for Delaware’s U.S. Senate seat last night, defeating opponent James DeMartino, who was backed by the state Republican Party. Witzke will be facing Democratic Sen. Chris Coons in the general election this November.
Media Matters includes Witzke in its running list of candidates who have supported the outlandish but dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that President Donald Trump is secretly battling a network of satanic pedophiles connected to prominent business, political, and entertainment influencers who are allegedly trafficking children. Media Matters notes that Witzke has tweeted a QAnon slogan and has been photographed wearing a QAnon t-shirt. Earlier this year, Witzke attempted to distance herself from the QAnon movement.
Witzke’s campaign has been marked by its closeness to extremists. Witzke is campaigning on a staunch anti-immigration platform, calling for a 10-year halt on immigration into the United States, and has associated with white nationalists. She was endorsed by Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who has his own longtime ties to far-right nationalists. And although the Delaware Republican Party endorsed her primary opponent, she claimed on Twitter in February that members of the state’s GOP had “been really good” to her.
RWW revealed in May that Witzke’s then-campaign manager Michael Sisco displayed an affinity for far-right figures and anti-Semites, and had once proposed implementing royal rule in the United States as a means of driving Jews out of positions of power. Since our reporting, Sisco appears to have left Witzke’s campaign team.
Right Wing Watch first encountered Witzke at a 2019 event billed as the “Deplorables Tour” at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., where Witzke claimed that President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border was in accordance with God’s will and that Trump had been anointed by the Lord.
“There has been an assignment to wipe out my generation, but I will not stand by and let this continue. … Our God is a God of order. God establishes the borders of nations. Our nation is built on biblical principles. And there is an agenda for decades to dismantle the unity of our people and to provoke chaos,” Witzke said at the event.
After her win, she thanked white nationalist and anti-Semitic podcaster Nick Fuentes, who congratulated her on the victory.
She also shared congratulations on Twitter from far-right users, including Gateway Pundit contributor Cassandra Fairbanks, far-right columnist Michelle Malkin, white nationalist organization VDARE, and far-right Twitter account Columbia Bugle.
