Donald Trump insists that he “doesn’t have a racist bone in [his] body,” but such protests have done nothing to quell the fury over his anti-immigrant rhetoric—especially after a gunman killed nearly two dozen people in a racist attack on an El Paso Walmart in response to what he called an “invasion” of Hispanic immigrants. Several 2020 candidates, including former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke, have gone after the president for his overt racism, saying he has “dehumanized or sought to dehumanize those who do not look like or pray like the majority here in this country.” And this week, O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and others answered in the affirmative when asked whether Trump is a white supremacist. “Yes, I do,” Buttigieg told a reporter in Miami. “At best, he’s emboldening people with that intention.”

Rather than balk at the label, however, the Trump campaign is taking it in stride. According to Axios, Team Trump sees the Democratic charge of white supremacy as a political benefit for the president in 2020. Their theory is that the accusation will help him with his most hardcore base while bringing more moderate Republicans, who may see the charge as a step too far, over to their side. In short, the Trump campaign sees in the white supremacist label a potentially useful rallying point, as Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” was in 2016. “They’re trying to make the case that anyone who supports this president is a racist,” a Trump campaign official told Axios. “They’re talking about [nearly] half the country.”

Of course, just because the charge may indict half the country doesn’t mean it’s not true. But the the potential for voters to get caught in the dragnet will doubtless factor into candidates’ labels for Trump. “He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists,” Warren told the New York Times on Thursday. “He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.” Others, such as Kamala Harris and frontrunner Joe Biden, have called out the president’s racist rhetoric, but stopped short of labeling him a white supremacist. “He’s encouraging white supremacy,” Biden said in a press scrum at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday. “You can determine what that means.”

Biden justified his decision to punt in part by throwing the question back to the press (“Why are you so hooked on that?”), and in part by setting himself apart from the rest of the field. “You just want me to say the words so I sound like everybody else,” he said. “I’m not everybody else. I’m Joe Biden. I’ve always been who I am. I’m staying that way...I know it’s like everybody wants everybody to call somebody a liar. I don’t call people liars. I said they don’t tell the truth. Okay?”

This middle-of-the-road tack is likely strategic. “Telling voters they backed an overt white supremacist makes them culpable, defensive,” pundit Noah Rothman tweeted Thursday. Declining to label Trump outright, as Biden has done, “gives them plausible deniability.” It’s possible that threading the needle could allow him to peel off some moderate Republicans. But it could also frustrate Democrats in the left-hand wing of the party. Ultimately, whether a candidate has called Trump a “white supremacist” or merely said he “encourages white supremacy” may not be a deciding factor for voters. But as the primary rolls on, it’s yet another way to divide up the crowded field.

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