GOP Senate candidate’s 'out of control' crime chart is actually just a map of water fountains

12 June 2024

Royce White – who the Minnesota Republican Party endorsed in its upcoming U.S. Senate primary election — is now being mocked over a crime map he tweeted. The only problem: The map isn't of crime incidents, but of water fountains.

White tweeted a graph on Tuesday night showing the Minneapolis area covered in different colored dots. To explain the graph, White wrote, "Crime in Minneapolis... out of control. Come on now. Refund the police!" He added the hashtag #Godspeed.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Minnesota Reformer journalist Christopher Ingraham found a post by another X user who discovered that White's map was actually of 195 drinking fountains in Minneapolis' public parks, rather than crime.

Ingraham noted that White has since changed out the map of drinking fountains to one of reported gunshots. In a subsequent tweet, the Minnesota Reformer journalist noted that the frequency of reported gunshots in the Minneapolis area was down by 17%, and down by more than one third from the three-year average.

However, the original map of fountains can still be found in the edit history for Royce's tweet. When Ingraham pointed out the map being changed, the presumptive Minnesota Republican Senate nominee responded to Ingraham's post by using a term referencing a niche sexual fetish.

"We’re leaving the plantation," White tweeted. "You and your weird liberal buddies read it and weep."

White's error was noticed by others on X/Twitter. Former sports commentator and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann called the former NBA star-turned-politician a "f—ing idiot."

"I love this fool Royce "My NBA career lasted eight minutes and 55 seconds" White - he is a geyser of material," Olbermann tweeted.

Another X user whose bio says she's an environmental science professor at Northwestern University encouraged White to spend "less time at the strip club and more time researching stats." That appears to refer to a scandal reported earlier this month finding that White allegedly misspent thousands of dollars in donations to his unsuccessful 2022 U.S. House campaign — including at a Miami strip club.

Minnesota's Senate primary will take place on August 13. The winner will face off against Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), who is favored to win another six-year term this fall.

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