'Wreak havoc': New GOP head urged staffer to inundate Black group with Trump calls in 2020

Carlton Huffman isn't the best source for a story.

Blackballed from the party he used to work for. Bound by a restraining order for sending a threatening and racist message to a Republican Party official. Fired from his North Carolina job after his old white supremacist views came to light. And accused last year of sexual battery.

But Huffman, a 40-year-old former GOP operative, has something no one disputes: A couple of provocative 2020 text messages from Andrew Iverson, the new executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party.

Two days before the 2020 election, Iverson told the people on then-President Donald Trump's campaign in Wisconsin "to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election."

Then Iverson, at the time state head of Trump Victory, a joint operation of the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, said this: "Just be on standby in case there's any stunts we need to pull."

On Election Day 2020, two days later, Iverson then sent two text messages to Huffman, who was then Trump Victory's state strategic initiative director, encouraging him to get a bunch of Trump supporters to fill Souls to the Polls, a Black get-out-the-vote organization, with requests to be taken to go vote.

"Can Mario (Herrera, head of Hispanic outreach for Trump Victory) help get some Trump supporters to participate in Souls to the Polls?" Iverson told Huffman at 9:45 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2020. "'Can't wait to go vote for President Trump!' Wesring (sic) MAGA hat or something."

"I'm excited about this. Wreak havoc," Iverson then told Huffman. "For the afternoon and they'll make it clear they're excited to vote for Trump?"

In a statement, Iverson said this week that the text messages were jokes and weren't supposed to be taken seriously.

In a recent interview, Huffman said he never took them that way. He said Iverson clearly was trying to overwhelm and discourage Souls to the Polls, a Milwaukee group with strong ties to Democrats, by forcing the group to spend valuable resources on Trump supporters, who may or may not have voted, to various polling locations in Milwaukee.

The plan could have suppressed the Black vote in the state, Huffman added.

Huffman said he decided not to carry through with the directive because he considered it unethical and racist. He said he neither called Herrera nor lined up any Trump voters. But Iverson, he said, called him twice to see how the effort, called "Operation Rat (Expletive)," was going. Huffman said he lied, claiming it was going well.

Huffman, now an anti-Trump independent, said he had been having qualms about the campaign for some time and that this pushed him over the line. He said he told himself, "I'm not doing this."

"I had had some concerns leading up to that point, but I just kept my head down, did my job and kept my mouth shut otherwise," Huffman said, reflecting back on his time at Trump Victory. "But I had said there was a red line for me, and that was being told to do anything that was immoral."

Huffman said he is speaking out now because he believes that in Iverson, the state Republican Party has hired someone he considers a dirty trickster who tried unsuccessfully to overwhelm a get-out-the-vote organization targeting Black voters back in 2020.

Iverson, a Wisconsin native, most recently served as regional political director for the Republican National Committee. Along with leading Trump Victory in Wisconsin, Iverson also worked on the campaigns of Wisconsin Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil of Janesville.

Mark Jefferson stepped down from the post as the party's executive director in February and then took over as executive director of the Tavern League of Wisconsin in March. The executive director is responsible for the party's day-to-day operations.

Iverson says text messages were joking

Iverson had a very different take on the text messages he sent to Huffman on Election Day 2020. Iverson had hired Huffman as his strategic initiatives director in 2019. He did not deny sending both texts.

For Iverson, it was all a joke. He said he got into politics to make sure "that every single Wisconsite (sic) that is legally allowed to vote has the opportunity to do so" — not to suppress the vote anywhere.

"In 2020, I jokingly offered a scenario of Trump supporters utilizing a Democrat-aligned GOTV effort to ensure Republicans also made it out to the polls," Iverson said in a statement. "It was a spur of the moment thought and nothing more came of it."

In his statement, Iverson did not say whether he had named the effort "Operation Rat (Expletive)," as Huffman claimed. The term is used for covert dirty tricks in politics.

But Iverson did take a big swipe at his former staffer. He said these texts are coming to light only because a "disgruntled colleague who has a history of fabricating the truth and was fired for threatening his coworkers and espousing white supremacist views" is recounting his "drunk remembrances" to try to "absolve his own failings."

Huffman responded by emphazing that Iverson made followup calls on Election Day to try to make sure his directive was being carried out.

Beyond that, Huffman said this wasn't the only political stunt initiated by Iverson.

In August 2020, Huffman said he was told to circulate hundreds of flyers on the first day of the scaled-back Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee picturing then-vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris as a cop with hopes the media would blame disgruntled supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. Huffman said he got a pay raise after paying a volunteer to do this, though it got no media attention.

Iverson said he did grant Huffman permission to produce and distribute flyers outside of the Democratic Convention "as part of a larger bracketing effort" but said he didn't know the contents of the document. Iverson said nearly all staffers got raises from time to time.

"I have accepted and taken accountability for the many failures in my life," Huffman said. "I have attempted to make right those failures; they continue to hide behind political spin."

Hoffman's many personal issues

Indeed, Huffman's personal issues are legion.

After Trump's defeat in 2020, Huffman went to work in the 2022 cycle for a couple of unsuccessful Republican campaigns — gubernatorial candidate Kevin Nicholson and attorney general candidate Eric Toney. Then, Huffman, a native of North Carolina, headed south to help out then-U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker.

In January 2023, Huffman garnered national attention when he sued Matt Schlapp, accusing the head of the American Conservative Union of grabbing his genital area when the two men were alone in a car after a Walker campaign event.

Things quickly began to unravel for Huffman. He lost his job with the North Carolina Legislature after a local TV station reported he had espoused white supremacist views on a pro-white radio show in 2009 and 2010.

Huffman said he now rejects his past views, which were brought to light in an anonymous email to North Carolina statehouse reporters. Huffman said he didn't know who sent the email.

But it appears he thinks it was someone affiliated with the Wisconsin Republican Party. Shortly after losing his job, he sent threatening notes to leaders of Trump Victory in Wisconsin, including Iverson and Chris Olmstead, former deputy director of the statewide Trump operation and a state GOP staffer. Iverson and Omstead said they had no role with the email that led Huffman to be fired in North Carolina.

In early February 2023, Huffman also acknowledges that he leaked audio to The Associated Press of Iverson urging Republicans two days before the 2020 presidential election "to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election."

The same day the story ran, Huffman sent a note to Iverson, saying, "Man to man. Prepare yourself for Operation Rat (Expletive)."

He sent Olmstead even stronger notes on the same day.

"Know this, you may have dropped a tactical nuke on me, but I have multiple city-killer ICBM's coming," Huffman wrote Olmstead. "Put it a different way so your mind can understand, last time was Peal Harbor, you're Japan. Hiroshima is coming bitch."

Olmstead, who is of Pacific Island descent, went to court and received a four-year restraining order against Huffman. Huffman said he was unaware of Olmstead's heritage.

Around the same time, two North Carolina women accused Huffman of sexual assault. A court ordered Huffman to stay away from one of the women for a year, a restraining order that expired earlier this year. No criminal charges were filed.

As for the Schlapp case, Huffman and the conservative leader settled the groping lawsuit for $480,000. "We have resolved our differences," Huffman told the Journal Sentinel.

In his statement, Iverson said he knew nothing of Huffman's past or his personal issues when he hired him.

In the fall of 2020, Iverson said, Huffman offered his resignation when a campaign event featuring Trump White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney "failed miserably," something Huffman doesn't dispute. Iverson said he told Huffman to stay on with the campaign through the end of the cycle.

"This is a decision," Iverson said, "I regret in hindsight."

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 313-6684 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on X at @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin GOP head urged staffer to swarm Black group with Trump calls