One of the ugliest aspects of the Trump for President phenomenon – which anyone who’s been on Twitter can attest to – is how the white supremacists (or “alt-right” or “white nationalists” or whatever they call themselves) have rallied around Trump and swarm against anyone who threatens him. The Washington Post has detailed how these groups view the Trump campaign as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for recruitment of racists. Now, we learn that white supremacists are actively robocalling for Trump in Minnesota and Vermont, and the Rubio campaign is fighting back.

TPM has the story, with audio:

A white supremacist super PAC is rolling out a fresh robocall campaign this week in Vermont and Minnesota telling voters, “Don’t vote for a Cuban. Vote for Donald Trump.” In a recording of the robocall sent to TPM, American National Super PAC founder William Daniel Johnson calls on white Americans to brush aside their fears of being branded as racist and stop the “gradual genocide against the white race” by electing Trump. “The white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be called ‘racist,’” Johnson says in the recording, which will be pushed out Wednesday in Vermont and Thursday in Minnesota. Voters in both states will head to the polls on Super Tuesday to vote in the Republican presidential primary. Johnson, who serves as the head of the white nationalist American Freedom Party, has pushed out similar robocall campaigns through his PAC in Iowa and New Hampshire. Both the party and PAC explicitly praise Trump for espousing what they see as a pro-white, anti-immigrant message.

Trump has previously tried to distance himself from these sleazebags, without much effect. Now the Rubio campaign is hitting Trump directly on his racist supporters:

Rubio spokesman @PounderFile calls on Trump to repudiate the white supremacist group doing the robocalls. pic.twitter.com/y0M4iWL47v — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 25, 2016

It will be interesting to see if Rubio goes there tomorrow night at the debate. He has sharpened his attacks on Trump on the trail:

In a preview of Thursday’s debate, Sen. Marco Rubio went after Donald Trump during a rally in Houston Wednesday night as he looks to jump into first place in states voting on Super Tuesday. During his address to supporters in Houston, Rubio hit Trump for past statements on Obamacare, foreign policy and Israel…”The front-runner in this race, Donald Trump, has actually alluded to the fact that he thinks parts of Obamacare are pretty good.”…”You can’t just say the way some people in this race have said — you’ll probably know what I’m talking about in a moment. You can’t just [say] ‘When I get there, I’ll hire the smartest people and they’ll tell me what to do,'” Rubio said pointedly at Trump…”Again, the front-runner in this race, Donald Trump, has said he’s not going to take sides on Israel vs. the Palestinians because he wants to be an honest broker,” Rubio railed. “Well there’s no such thing as an honest broker in that because the Palestinian Authority, which has strong links to terror, teach little kids — five-year-olds — that it’s a glorious thing to kill Jews.”

Look for fireworks tomorrow night in Houston.