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Who is Royce White, the basketball star challenging Sen. Amy Klobuchar?

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Who is Royce White, the basketball star challenging Sen. Amy Klobuchar?

On paper, Royce White seems like an ideal political outsider. He’s a charismatic, high-profile public figure with a compelling personal narrative and pre-existing fan base from his time as a professional athlete and charismatic broadcaster. In that sense, the Minnesota Republican party’s choice to tap White — a former college basketball star, first-round NBA draft pick, mental health advocate and popular podcast host — as their endorsed candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is fairly understandable. 

Similarly understandable, however, is the fact that White’s endorsement came “qualified, with reservations.” White, who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in 2022, has long courted the further fringes of his party’s extreme right wing with inflammatory and often offensive rhetoric about women, Jewish people, the LGBTQ community, and others. White has also been accused of owing significant back child support payments, as well as of “outrageous” campaign finance violations by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which recently filed a complaint against the candidate with the Federal Elections Commission. 

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