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Analysis
Karoline Leavitt has the politics of an octogenarian. Now the 25-year-old is hoping to take those regressive positions into office.
Leavitt is the Republican candidate in a tight race for New Hampshire’s first congressional district.
She applauded Roe v. Wade getting overturned, opposes student loan debt relief, and has called Black Lives Matter a “Marxist terrorist organization.” She also stillwon’t concede that President Joe Biden won the election.
There’s a good reason why this is probably giving you flashbacks to a spray-tanned ex-president: she worked for him.
Leavitt was a spokesperson in the Trump administration. Now she spends her days emulating her former boss in person and on social media.
Her Twitter feed is peppered with references to “Deep State Doctors,” election fraud lies, and all-caps missives about “the swamp” her ex-boss loved to invoke even as he wallowed in its muck. She called Capitol rioters “peaceful,” said that overturning Roe v. Wade doesn’t affect women’s rights, and promised to arrest Hillary Clinton if she’s elected to Congress.
Sometimes Leavitt doesn’t bother to create her own Trumpisms; she simply repeats his banalities about hydroxychloroquine and critical race theory. (She is for and against, respectively.)
Leavitt tweets about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) so much, you’d think she was running against her. She seems to fancy herself as the anti-Ocasio-Cortez.
Leavitt is such an extremist that Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) campaigned for her. Leavitt describes Boebert and Republicans like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as “freedom fighters.”
Last year, she earned the coveted right-wing badge of honor: a Twitter suspension, which she milked for all it was worth.
Twitter said the extremely brief suspension was in error, something to do with her tweeting a message from a permanently suspended ex-president.
Online, you can find Leavitt on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Truth Social, and Gettr.
Why it matters
Leavitt is a radical candidate whose positions are unpalatable to people who support reproductive freedom, have faith in the electoral system, and want America to be more fair and equitable to people of every race, faith, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
Her politics may be regressive, but they certainly appeal to the old, overwhelmingly white guard of the Republican base.