Royce White, a former professional basketball star and mental health advocate turned far-right politician, has won the Republican primary for the 2024 U.S. Senate election in Minnesota, his first major triumph on the political scene.
The 33-year-old upstart candidate, long associated with former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and the ideology of his advisors, is the first Senate candidate to be born in the 1990s. He will face incumbent Amy Klobuchar in the general election this fall, a race that is projected to be a safe win for Democrats.
“For many years, Republicans have talked about expanding our tent and focusing on the Twin Cities Metro,” White wrote on social media Tuesday night.
“I am committed to growing the base, bringing disenfranchised democrats into the tent, and unifying all conservatives in Minnesota. By doing this, we will deliver a victory for President Trump this November.”
I thank every Minnesotan who voted in tonight’s primary election. I’m deeply honored to have your support during this critical time in our nation’s history.
— Royce White 🇺🇸 (@Highway_30) August 14, 2024
For many years, Republicans have talked about expanding our tent and focusing on the Twin Cities Metro. I am committed to… pic.twitter.com/T6I0E4DoTD
The Saint Paul native, a former Minnesota Mr. Basketball who was heavily recruited out of high school, starred for Iowa State University before being drafted by the NBA’s Houston Rockets in 2012. White’s first professional stint was short-lived, however, due to an anxiety disorder that prevented him from traveling by airplane. After sparring with the league and his team over the issue, making major headlines, he bounced around the association and later starred for the National Basketball League of Canada, winning a championship and MVP award in 2017.
After gaining notoriety for his protests against the persecution of the Uyghur people in China, White announced a 2022 run for the U.S. House of Representatives in a bid to unseat The Squad member Ilhan Omar. White had the endorsement of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon but lost the GOP primary; he ran on a platform aligned with the former administration's claims of a stolen 2020 election and its conservative viewpoints on science and hot-button social issues.
White, a Black Catholic, has integrated faith with his political activities, often citing Bible verses and Catholic spirituality in his populist vision of American conservative restoration. A revert to Catholicism, he has suggested that the government is under satanic influences, particularly as it relates to the policies of his political opponents.
“The Democrat platform has made a radical departure from God,” he wrote online in 2022, among various similar posts amid his campaign to unseat Omar, who is Muslim.
White has faced various legal troubles dating back to his time in college, when his first college team—the Minnesota Gophers—suspended him following a violent incident at the Mall of America that led to his arrest and guilty plea for theft and disorderly conduct. The next month, he was investigated for an alleged theft on campus but was later cited only for trespassing. He transferred to Iowa State in 2010.
Following his ascent to the NBA, White was again in court, this time over child support. He reportedly has four children and, as of 2024, is behind by more than $100,000 in payments that he has claimed are unfairly based on his former salary level.
White’s 2022 House campaign faced accusations of finance violations, related to an estimated $157,000 in missing funds. On his current campaign’s website, White disputes the level of mismanagement and lays the blame on “political and legal professionals” who managed parts of his unsuccessful run.
“Miscommunications took place and my FEC filings had missing information,” he wrote. “This led to my liberal, political opponents, in the fake news media, using these incomplete reports to claim I had PERSONALLY misused the funds.”
Following his first electoral defeat, White started a podcast, “Please Call Me Crazy,” in February 2023. The show discusses a variety of issues (including regressive views on women and LGBTQ+ people) and features as guests many of his ideological confreres, including Bannon, the controversial Catholic commentator Timothy Gordon, and the popular priest-exorcist Chad Ripperger.
In his current campaign, the first for a Black Minnesotan running for the Senate as a major party candidate, White is focusing on an anti-war platform—including rejection of the GOP consensus on the 2023 Israel–Hamas War. Though critics have connected this stance to various antisemitic comments White has made in recent years, he denies that he is prejudiced against Jewish people.
“As an America 1st candidate, it is my position that NO COUNTRY get our aid without conditions, that means no country,” White says on his website.
White has also noted the ongoing U.S.-Mexico border crisis as one of his primary policy issues, alongside congressional term limits, election integrity, globalism, and mental health, among others.
Though not endorsed directly by Trump—with whom he has campaigned—White has received endorsements from Kari Lake, Arizona’s GOP nominee for the Senate, and Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. If elected, White would become just the second known Black Catholic ever to serve in the nation’s upper chamber, after Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
