REMSEN, Iowa — As the polka band played and the volunteers started serving the bratwurst, word slowly rippled through the annual Oktoberfest in this remote Iowa farm town: Eleven Jews had been massacred in Pittsburgh, gunned down at their synagogue.

“Hatred,” Iowans gathered for the celebration said. “Sad.” “Awful.” “Makes me sick.”

No one questioned whether their well-liked representative Steve King — the U.S. congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism — might be contributing to anti-Semitism or racism through his unapologetic embrace of white nationalist rhetoric and his praise of far-right politicians and groups in other nations.

“There’s still groups out there that praise Hitler and believe everything he taught. ... A lot of that is going to get misconstrued,” said Joe Schuttpelz. If King’s goal is defending the status of native-born Americans as immigrants move in, then Schuttpelz approves. “He’s not so much protecting us from getting taken over as giving us some advantages that everybody else has when they come here,” he said.

The belief he expressed in Remsen, in the wake of the deadliest attack on Jewish Americans in history, is prevalent across Iowa’s 4th District, where King is seeking a ninth term in Congress.

In his 16 years in the House, King has become better known for making incendiary remarks about immigration and race than for passing a bill. He has maligned some Latinos as having “calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

He has embraced far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders and recently endorsed Faith Goldy, a fringe candidate for Toronto mayor.

In an August interview with members of a far-right Austrian party with historical Nazi ties, King lamented that “Western civilization is on the decline” because of immigrants and criticized Jewish financier George Soros.

In an interview after Saturday’s shooting in Pittsburgh, King said he was not anti-Semitic, touting his strong support for Israel and insisting there’s “a special place in hell” for anyone who perpetrates religious or race-based violence.

He said the groups he’s associated with that are criticized as having neo-Nazi views were more accurately “far right” groups. He specifically cited Austria’s Freedom Party, which was founded by a former Nazi SS officer and is led by Heinz-Christian Strache, who was active in neo-Nazi circles as a youth. The group has emphasized a hard-line anti-immigration stance even as it seeks to distance itself from the Nazi connections.

“If they were in America pushing the platform that they push, they would be Republicans,” King said.

On Tuesday, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, condemned recent remarks made by King on white nationalism, becoming the highest-profile GOP leader to rebuke the lawmaker to date.

“We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior,” Stivers said on Twitter.

King issued a statement on Twitter late Tuesday afternoon in which he denounced “establishment Never Trumpers” and attacks that he said were “orchestrated by nasty, desperate, and dishonest fake news” whose goal is to “flip the House and impeach Donald Trump.”

Stivers’ admonition came hours after Land O’Lakes announced that it was withdrawing its support for King. The company behind the butter brand had faced calls for a boycott after it emerged that it made a $2,500 contribution to King’s campaign in June.

King’s Democratic opponent J.D. Scholten has significantly outraised him, and has mounted a far more aggressive in-person campaign across the district. The Sioux City Journal on Oct. 26 endorsed Scholten, reversing its backing of King in past years.

Last week Scholten, on the 37th stop of his third 39-county swing through the area, largely avoided bashing King, and even more rarely talked about Trump. Like many Midwestern Democrats, he has focused on health care and agriculture.

On Saturday, a Scholten aide said the Pittsburgh shooting had sparked a new wave of donations to his campaign.

In an interview, Scholten said King has failed throughout his career to denounce hate groups.

“It goes against everything we are taught in church,” he said. “Whatever you believe in, this district has strong faith, and none of these faiths preach this.”

But King remains popular; many voters do not consider his positions disqualifying.

Bob Scott, the mayor of Sioux City — the largest town in the sprawling district — says Iowans don’t share King’s views although they do vote for him.

“They may have problems with immigration. They may have problems about race relations for whatever reason,” he said. “But the majority won’t agree with what goes on when he’s meeting with those people from Austria. I just don’t see that type of racism here, and that’s what it is.”

Across the 4th District — a highly conservative swath of Iowa nearly 200 miles wide, mile upon mile of fertile farmland dotted with towns the length of a two-block Main Street — King has widespread support.

“Steve’s Steve. He’s a local guy. He graduated from high school here. He comes in for breakfast on Sundays,” says Crawford County Supervisor Eric Skoog, who with his wife Terri owns what they believe to be the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Iowa.

Skoog says he disagrees with King on immigration and hasn’t been afraid to share his conflicting views. Skoog has worked hard to help local schools adjust to the influx of immigrant children in Denison, one place in the heavily white district where a major meatpacking plant has drawn a sizable Latino community.

Still, Skoog said, “I don’t see him as racist. I don’t know. He’s just Steve.”

King’s nativist views are far less popular among the area’s business leaders, who see immigration as essential to filling the needs of meat-processing plants and other companies.

“We need more people. We have great-paying jobs. We just need more people to fill the jobs,” said Kelly Halsted, the economic development director for the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance. Immigration into Iowa, she says, is “completely a positive.”