Missouri GOP boots gubernatorial candidate tied to KKK and pictured throwing Nazi salute in front of a burning cross
Missouri’s Republican party is trying to boot one of its members from running for governor after finding out he was an honorary member of the Ku Klux Klan — and even pictured throwing Nazi salutes in front of a burning cross.
“The Missouri Republican Party has been made aware that Darrell Leon McClanahan III filed for governor as a Republican despite his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, which fundamentally contradicts our party’s values and platform,” the state party posted on X Thursday.
“We have begun the process of having McClanahan removed from the ballot as a Republican candidate.
“We condemn any association with hate groups and are taking immediate action to rectify this situation,” the state GOP said, saying the party “upholds respect for all individuals.”
McClanahan was one of eight people who filed a petition this week to run in the Republican primary for governor.
He once described himself as a “pro-white man, horseman, political prisoner-activist who is dedicated to traditional Christian values” — and has been photographed with KKK leaders as well as throwing a Sieg Heil salute alongside a white-hooded Klansmen in front of a burning cross.
He also says that he has had “honorary memberships” in the Knight’s Party Ku Klux Klan and the League of the South, according to legal papers seen by the Riverfront Times.
“The Missouri GOP knew exactly who I am,” he tweeted in reply to the initial statement.
“I’ve received several death threats today,” he said, making uncorroborated claims about other party members and claiming party leaders knew he “was a Christian identist,” which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “an antisemitic, racist theology” where only white people are the favored by God.
“Again, I will state the GOP knew exactly who I am. What a bunch of Anti-White hypocrites.”
McClanahan told The Post Friday that he sent party members his platform three weeks before he entered the race.
“I filed legally and lawfully,” McClanahan said, saying he even got a receipt for his filing fee from the GOP.
“Yet because they don’t like me, they want to remove me,”
He said the GOP will have to file a civil complaint to remove him.
“They’re fully aware of who I am … I am going to continue to run for governor,” he vowed.
McClanahan had previously run for the United States Senate in 2022, but garnered only 0.2% of the vote, or 1,139 votes, losing in a Republican primary to now-Sen. Eric Schmitt, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
He then launched a write-in campaign for a US House seat, but gained only one vote, election results show.
Following the failed bids for federal office, the Anti-Defamation League published an article that included a photo of McClanahan standing next to two men whom the organization described as Knights Party leaders — one of whom seemed to be wearing a KKK insignia.
The “Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” are a modern branch of the hate group.
Another photo included in the ADL’s article seemed to show McClanahan at a 2019 cross burning standing next to someone in a full KKK robe and pointed hat.
Both men have their right arm up in a Nazi salute.
“Yes it’s me,” he told the Riverfront Times of the flaming cross photo, claiming it was in an earlier lawsuit that the photo showed him at “a private religious Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony falsely described as a cross burning.”
He said he attended the ceremony in response to a Charlottesville Unite the Right protester being sentenced to seven years in prison, according to NBC News.
Still, he insisted he is “not a Nazi” when asked about the photos by the Post-Dispatch.
“They have a bad picture of me,” McClanahan said of the ADL. “I don’t believe in heil Hitler.”
He has said he is not a member of the KKK, but noted in his $5 million lawsuit against the ADL that he was “provided an honorary one-year membership,” USA Today reports.
The membership referred to the League of the South, a self-proclaimed “southern nationalist” group that advocates for the “cultural as well as political secession” of former Confederate states, McClanahan told the Post-Dispatch.
But McClanahan told The Post: “I do not agree with the League of the South, I do not agree with secession.”
“I’m for all races, religions and creeds getting a fair share in our courts,” he said.
After he filed his candidacy for governor this week, former Missouri State Rep. Shamed Dogan re-posted the photos, writing on X: “I just learned the candidate listed first on our primary ballot for Governor is a cross-burning KKK member who ran for US Senate [two] years ago and freely admits his KKK membership & white supremacist beliefs.
“Please tell me you’re gonna… reject this racist loser’s filing fee?”
