The sole Republican candidate running in a state Senate race in North Carolina is a niqab-wearing, self-described “pro-choice,” “down for ISIS,” pro-Trump political novice who says her candidacy represents the future of the GOP.
LaKeshia Mashonda Ruddi Alston has drawn national attention after her campaign photo — showing her wearing a niqab covering her entire face except for her eyes — circulated widely on social media, later prompting scrutiny of her long record of voting for Democratic candidates. In an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, Alston, who is running in the heavily Democratic Durham-based 22nd Senate district, defended her purported political evolution and policy views amid skepticism from voters.
When asked what conservative principles she considers important, Alston replied: “I am down for ISIS.”
Alston five times throughout the interview said something to the effect of “I am down for ISIS … I stand for ISIS,” when appearing to refer to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Alston did not clarify whether she was referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement when contacted for follow-up.
“I am down for ISIS. The police tell you that you gotta freeze. You have to stop. I can’t go on to another country without a passport,” Alston said. “I did experience students who did have some interaction with ISIS. And was it sad? Yes, it was very sad. I cried. I empathize with them, which is why I am for ISIS.”
“I am a Republican,” Alston told the DCNF. “I’ve matured in my own revelation of what the Republican Party represents, and it looks like me.”
“Are we going back to segregation time?” Alston asked in response to a question about criticism of her GOP affiliation. “Because, I’m a Republican, and I don’t really understand the aims and the values of what that party represents. So I’m just going to be taken back at what somebody looks like, because we’re used to the Democrats pussy footin’ around.”
Alston endorsed tariffs as a means of countering Chinese manufacturing dominance, appearing to frame the Trump trade policy as a tool of national security and economic prosperity.
“You know, China has monopolized off of every single thing that we use on a day to day basis. And to me, it really was making me sick, because once you start looking at it and everything is made in China. Everything,” Alston said. “My dad is an Army vet. He fought in the Vietnam War. Okay, so if my dad has PSTD [sic], he hasn’t forgotten about what happened, the World War One, World War Two. They haven’t forgotten. They haven’t forgotten about Hiroshima.”
She continued: “I went to Jordan High School—there was this Chinese little boy, and he was my friend. He was real cool. But he would show me his fingernails, and I was like, ‘Why do your nails look like that? Like, what is that stuff on them?’ And he’s like, ‘It’s in our DNA, still from the Hiroshima bombing … it’s just in our DNA until it just goes away.’”
In 1945, the U.S. military deployed nuclear weapons against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are in Japan, not China. Alston did not respond to requests for clarification on this distinction.
Alston also claimed that Chinese manufacturing dominance could be weaponized.
“They’re producing our sheets,” she said. “If we lay in that, is what they’re making it out of going to eventually make us sick?”
Alston said the choice of her wearing a niqab was deliberate and symbolic, rejecting what she described as the “beauty contest” dynamic of modern politics.
“I didn’t want it to go in for the looks,” she said. “I wanted it to be about who is the most qualified.”
She argued that the state Senate race, which features three women as the only declared candidates, should not be “a bimbo competition.”
“If they are feeling a certain kind of way about not being able to see my face, it’s because we’re visual people, so we’re trying to say, ‘Oh, that’s pretty. Oh, that’s not pretty,’” Alston said. “Am I going to sign off on the bills that are going to make the change, that are going to bring in the revenue, that are going to have lasting improvements? Or do you just want to look at me and see how pretty I am so I can argue with the next girl over her hair?”
Asked whether there is room for religious and cultural diversity in today’s Republican Party, Alston invoked the Constitution’s preamble.
“It’s like the preamble — ‘In order to form a more perfect union.’ In order to form a more perfect union, I might not need to have you look at my lips when I’m talking so that you can focus,” Alston said. “I want the people to remember the part of ‘Give me liberty or give me peace.’”
“Republicans, I mean, if we do our history, we already know we are cultured … We are not, excuse my language, but we’re not redneck honkies who don’t have any education or intellect,” Alston said.
Alston’s voting record supporting Democrats as recently as last year has fueled skepticism on social media about her position as the state-level race’s standard-bearer.
“People live, and you learn. People grow out of things,” Alston said of her political evolution. “This is the year of the snake. This is the year where everyone should be shedding old skin.”
On policy, Alston described herself as aligned with Republican priorities. She appeared to use the phrase “pro-choice” in the context of firearm legislation, falsely claiming that Muslims do not carry firearms — though expressing support for gun rights. The candidate did not state where she stands on the issue of abortion.
“If you’re a Muslim, Muslims don’t carry firearms,” she said. “But I feel secure if the man that I’m with has a firearm. I feel secure the fact that I know how to handle a firearm, if I was to choose to carry that … well, I will not. I don’t want to carry it.”
“But I’m pro choice. So it’s like, even with God on the money, it’s ‘In God We Trust,’” Alston continued. “When you’re at the pinnacle of success, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When you flip over a dollar and you look at that paradigm [sic], you see an eye. Why? Because, do we witness to the testament of what that dollar, what the $20, what $100, what a $50 represents every time we spend it? Or are we saying, ‘I don’t know?’”
Asked about President Donald Trump’s influence on the Republican Party, Alston said that she and the president were on the “same page” and spoke favorably of him as a “family-oriented” businessman who has reshaped the party into a movement.
“He’s about business,” she said. “Everywhere he goes, he impacts somebody.”
“You’re not even supposed to touch certain people, but he’s like, I’m going to touch you anyway, because if I could just touch, you know…he is a spiritual man,” Alston said of the president. “If people would stop looking at his face, talking about his tan, if they could just listen to him auditorially. Auditory learning. If they would just listen to what he has to say.”
Alston, however, rejected the notion that Trump wearing a niqab would improve his aesthetic.
Alston said voters should judge her by her professional record — as an educator, entrepreneur and community advocate — rather than her appearance or unconventional political path.
“I produce good fruit,” she said. “If you would trust me to do body massage, to teach your children, to hand you a pair of shoes and help you try them on, you can most certainly count on me to produce the policy and make the effective change that District 22 so rightfully deserves.”
The North Carolina state Senate primary is scheduled for March 2026. The filing deadline to enter the race passed on Dec. 19, making Alston the presumptive GOP nominee.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris carried the 22nd district over Trump with 78% of the vote in the 2024 presidential election, according to data on Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA), a free nonpartisan website. The district’s voting-age population is 44% white, 35% black and 15% Hispanic according to 2020 Census data published on DRA. Alston is set to face the winner of the contested Democratic Primary between incumbent state Sen. Sophia Chitlik, a former Obama-organizer, and her challenger, former Durham city councilwoman DeDreana Freeman.
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