Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday said Republicans are “absolutely” enabling racism by cowering from President Trump and that the antidote is a resounding victory for Democrats in the 2020 elections.

“They’re enabling all of the wrongdoing that this president has brought with him, from inaction on Russian interference to naked racism,” Mr. Buttigieg said on CNN’s “New Day.”

Echoing a line from Tuesday’s debate, he said the GOP was “horrified” when former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke tried to run for governor of Louisiana 20 years ago and “ran away from him as fast as you can go.”

“Now, you see racism emanating from the White House, and Republicans are either supportive, or they are silent — and the thing that’s really important to understand right now is they know better,” said Mr. Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

He said Republicans are silent because they’re “afraid” and that the only way they’ll ultimately “do the right thing” is if they are “completely defeated at the ballot box.”

“To have not only Trump, but Trumpism and its supporters rejected so resoundingly in 2020 in congressional and Senate races as well as the White House that there is some soul-searching on the Republican side of the aisle about how they can be a healthy, responsible political party in this country,” he said.

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Mr. Buttigieg offered words of warning to Republicans who might be rushing to defend Mr. Trump.

“If you are watching this at home and you are a Republican member of Congress, consider the fact that, when the sun sets on your career and they are writing your story, of all the good and bad things you did in your life, the thing you will be remembered for is whether, in this moment, with this president, you found the courage to stand up to him or you continued to put party over country,” he said.

A majority of U.S. voters said they think Mr. Trump is racist, according to polling from Quinnipiac University released on Tuesday.

In recent days, Mr. Trump has been hammering Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, for not doing enough to support his majority-black Baltimore-area district, which the president called “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

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