A candidate for mayor in Charlotte, North Carolina has deactivated her Facebook account after listing being “white” as one of her qualifications to run the city.

Kimberley Paige Barnette, the 53-year-old running for mayor, was quickly rebuked by the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, and was forced to apologise for the remarks.

“VOTE FOR ME!” Ms Barnette wrote on her Facebook page, according to the Charlotte Observer. “REPUBLICAN & SMART, WHITE, TRADITIONAL.”

But, fellow Republicans in the state said that kind of messaging was inappropriate.

“Any suggestion that a candidate is more or less qualified for political office based on their skin color alone is offensive to North Carolina Republicans, and we condemn it,” Robin Hayes, the state Republican chair, said in a statement. “This type of suggestion has no place in our public discourse.”

Ms Barnette has since then removed her post, and apologized. She is trailing her two competitors in the race to clinch the Republican primary to become the mayor. The primary is scheduled for later this month.

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The candidate, who is a former Mecklenburg County magistrate, has campaigned saying that the country needs to attract high income people to the city. “We should attract higher-income people,” she said during a debate last month.

We shouldn’t “encourage more lower-income people to [come to] Charlotte,” she said, according to local press.