White Supremacist Wins Delaware Republican Primary for U.S. Senate
Lauren Witzke, an antisemitic QAnon believer and white supremacist, who announced in January that she was running for U.S. Senate to represent Delaware, won the Republican primary on September 15, 2020. Almost all of her primary campaign was managed by Michael Sisco, a white nationalist fascist who was fired from former Rep. Bobby Schilling’s Iowa Congressional primary campaign after his ties to Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes were discovered. (Fuentes publicly congratulated Witzke on her win the night of the primary, to which she responded “Thank you, Nick!”)
Witzke formerly worked for the Iowa GOP as a field organizer for the Trump 2020 campaign, leaving not long after Sisco — with whom she was romantically involved at the time* — was fired from the Schilling campaign. It is unclear if Witzke was fired or voluntarily left her position at the Iowa GOP, but her employment was terminated shortly after Sisco’s connection to antisemites were publicized.
In her role as Field Operator, Witzke, who had an official Iowa GOP email address, coordinated Get Out The Vote efforts on behalf of the Trump campaign. She enlisted Sisco as a volunteer to help lead these efforts. During her time as an employee of the Iowa Republican Party, Witzke coordinated and attended multiple events with antisemitic QAnon believer Dylan Wheeler, who has spoken publicly about “the Jewish question” multiple times.
Lauren Witzke and Michael Sisco
Dylan Wheeler and Lauren Witzke
A Facebook post from Lauren Witzke about Sisco volunteering for the Trump campaign
In August 2019, Witzke received a number of pro-Trump signs from Dion Cini — who, in March of 2018, rallied with neo-Nazi Jovi Val, neo-Confederate Billy Sessions, and fascist Lauren White. White had threatened to burn down a Berkeley bookstore the year prior.
During her time with the Iowa GOP, Witzke also: openly promoted QAnon conspiracies; “liked” Facebook posts from Sisco about fascist events, such as the Boston Straight Pride parade; interacted with Nick Fuentes on Twitter; organized an event with white nationalist, and now fellow Republican primary winner, Laura Loomer; and appeared on Sisco's podcast twice, where she promoted antisemitic conspiracies about pedophilia.
UPDATE AS OF OCTOBER 11, 2020:
After winning her primary, Witzke made no effort to tone down her white supremacy. She was temporarily locked out of her Twitter account on October 10, 2020, after tweeting racist and anti-immigrant hate speech:
The tweet for which Lauren Witzke’s account was temporarily locked: “Let’s be clear, mass immigration absolutely destroyed Europe. Italy, France, Sweden and Germany took in tons of migrants who never assimilated. Rapes, murders and other heinous crimes abound. I will end ALL immigration into the US for ten years”
A similar tweet from Lauren Witzke posted the same day as the tweet for which her account was temporarily restricted: “Most third-world migrants can not assimilate into civil societies. Prove me wrong.”
This tweet was not removed and as of October 10, 2020, was still available.
The temporary lock on Witzke’s account came just one day after she posted another tweet — one that also remained available as of October 10, 2020 — repeating an antisemitic conspiracy about Jews using immigration to take over the world and bring about ‘white genocide.’
Lauren Witzke: “Globalists view mass immigration (also known as mass invasion) as their avenue to a world government.”
Unexpected to win her race, Witzke adapted the strategy of generating attention and support from the far-right by intentionally inciting outrage, only to complain of censorship when facing the consequences. The strategy is not ineffective. Her temporary Twitter ban prompted far-right figures with large followings, like Michelle Malkin, to rally around her, and earned her her first headline in Breitbart News since the spring of 2020. The headline about Witzke’s temporary ban generated more comments on the Breitbart site than all of the three previous articles about her combined.
Breitbart headline: “Twitter Censors Senate Candidate Lauren Witzke’s Immigration Views as ‘Hateful Conduct’”
More about Michael Sisco:
Sisco’s hosted a podcast previously named “Hearth and Fire” and now called “The Michael Sisco Show,” on which he has interviewed multiple far-right extremists. One of Sisco’s interviews was with Michael Witcoff, an antisemitic ex-Jewish conspiracy theorist. In the interview, Sisco and Witcoff reviewed the Poway Synagogue shooter’s manifesto. At minute 00:09:15, they read aloud this passage from the manifesto:
Witcoff (reading from the manifesto): "I do not care about the debt-based currency that Jews like to pretend is money and the circus that Jewry has used to attempt to passify my people"
Cisco: "I do kind of agree with him on the money thing."
Witcoff: "I would agree with him on both points actually [...] it's less a group of cohesive Jews against everyone else, and more that it's a bunch of individuals who are all kind of genetically and spiritually almost unconsciously and instinctually playing out the same patterns, even against each other as much as everyone else."
Sisco’s online presence shows that he has been involved in fascist movements and held white nationalist Christian supremacist views for some time. However, his affinity for Nazi ideology only grew after he was fired from the Schilling campaign, and even more so after he parted ways with the Witzke campaign. On April 24, 2020, he threatened to doxx and potentially harm researchers at Media Matters and Right Wing Watch, writing, “We can give them a taste of their own medicine. Confirming residential addresses…” A few weeks later, several of the individuals mentioned in the post to which Sisco responded were placed on a neo-Nazi kill list.
Names removed for the safety of the individuals mentioned.
Michael Sisco jokes about his score on a neo-Nazi account’s “Aryan Exam” test.
As Witzke’s campaign manager, Sisco appeared to at least partially run Witzke’s Twitter account, which he uses to promote white nationalist accounts that shared quotes from Hungary’s antisemitic and authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán:
As of July 11, 2020, Sisco appeared to no longer be working for Witzke’s campaign. He posted on his Instagram that he was “between jobs.” As of September 15, 2020, he runs Saints Edwards Media, a reactionary traditionalist outlet promoting white supremacy, Christian Orthodoxy, QAnon, and ‘America First.’
*It is unclear when Witzke and Sisco stopped dating. A livestreamed video from September 7, 2019, on a now-deactivated Facebook Page Sisco ran showed him telling friends that he is moving from Maryland to Iowa in part for Witzke, presumably when she moved there for her job with the Iowa GOP. As of Janury 15, 2020, Sisco appeared to have an account on a dating app. On that account, he listed his profession as Witzke’s campaign manager.