White Nationalist Richard Spencer Endorses Joe Biden

White nationalist Richard Spencer speaks during an event in Gainesville, Fla., in 2017. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

White nationalist Richard Spencer, who voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, says he now favors Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“I plan to vote for Biden and a straight democratic ticket,” Spencer said on Sunday.

In a series of posts on Twitter, Spencer said he believes “The MAGA/Alt-Right moment is over“ and that ”Nazis are the real liberals.”

“I’m sure everyone who seeks to influence public opinion is an attention-seeker at some level. But voting for a neoliberal frontman whose administration will more competently manage a declining empire is not one of my more outlandish stunts,” Spencer wrote in one missive.

Spencer told his supporters to be patient.

“We'll have another day in the sun. We need to recover and return in a new form,” he said.

Spencer says he voted for Trump in 2016 but turned against him in 2018. Actions Trump carried out that Spencer opposed included Trump tweeting about Congresswomen that year, telling them to “go back” to their home countries and the killing earlier in 2020 of Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general.

Spencer has expressed radical views in the past, including calling for the European Union to move forward as a “racial empire.” He was an organizer and speaker during the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that ended in violent clashes.

White nationalist Richard Spencer and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police in Emancipation Park after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Biden campaign quickly moved to distance itself from the endorsement.

“When Joe Biden says we are in a battle for the soul of our nation against vile forces of hate who have come crawling out from under rocks, you are the epitome of what he means. What you stand for is absolutely repugnant. Your support is 10,000% percent unwelcome here,” campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Spencer in a tweet.

Political observers have for years dissented on whether Spencer holds right-wing or left-wing views, an argument that reignited with his new endorsement.

In an interview with filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza for “Death of a Nation,” Spencer said he opposed immigration unless the immigrants were white. Trump has welcomed legal immigrants and opposed people who come to the United States illegally.

Spencer has also said he supports single-payer healthcare, a system of healthcare the Democrat Party supports, and wide access to abortion, which many Democrats also advocate for. Asked for his favorite presidents, he named Presidents Andrew Jackson and James Polk, both Democrats.

Spencer says he voted for John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. He supported Ron Paul, a Republican candidate who leaned toward libertarianism, in 2008.