Bush Campaign Deploys Willie Horton Attack Ad in Racially Charged Strategy Against Dukakis

A political action committee supporting Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush begins airing the "Willie Horton" attack ad on September 21, 1988. The ad features a mug shot of William Horton, a Black man who committed assault and rape while on a weekend prison furlough program in Massachusetts, and blames Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. Bush campaign strategist Lee Atwater drives the broader messaging strategy, having earlier told staff he would "make Willie Horton [Dukakis's] running mate." Atwater consciously uses the informal name "Willie" — Horton's legal name is William — a practice Horton later says was designed to invoke racial stereotypes: "big, ugly, dumb, violent, black." The ad is the culmination of the Southern Strategy's evolution from explicit racial appeals to racially coded crime-and-punishment messaging. On his deathbed in 1990, Atwater apologizes for the Horton campaign. Dukakis's numbers collapse; Bush wins the presidency.