A Halo Composer Turned His Fan Chat Room Into a Campaign Machine. The AP Found Slurs and Nazi Praise Inside.

A Halo Composer Turned His Fan Chat Room Into a Campaign Machine. The AP Found Slurs and Nazi Praise Inside.

Long before he became a Republican congressional candidate in Nevada, Marty O'Donnell was the award-winning composer behind the music of the "Halo" video game franchise. His following carried over into an online forum, and he turned that forum into a political operation — recruiting supporters, raising campaign money and billing himself as its "benevolent dictator." An Associated Press review of thousands of posts written between 2022 and 2026 found racial slurs, minimizing of Nazi Germany and defenses of white nationalist conspiracy theories inside it.

What the AP found in thousands of posts

One user wrote in March 2024 that the Nazis "did some good things" that were "completely overshadowed by the terrible things they did." Another asked that month, "Was Hitler really an evil guy?" — adding, "Like aside from the Holocaust, did he really even do anything wrong?" A member posted "Heil Hitler" in February. In May 2022, after a member wrote "WE STAND WITH MARTY," others reacted with letter emoji spelling out, incorrectly, a racial slur for Black people. Because the platform stops users from repeating a single emoji in a reaction, the slurs had to be assembled letter by letter.

From a Kiss joke to a campaign tool

"The Marty Army" began as an inside joke. Halo's developers created the chat room in 2001 on a website devoted to the game, and the name was meant to evoke a club for diehard fans of the band Kiss. O'Donnell joined and took control, later relocating it to Discord. His campaign website links to it, and he has publicized it from his X account. When he launched his first run in 2024 — he finished fourth in the party primary — he posted: "Hey all! If you'd like to be part of my run for Congress, you can be part of Marty's Army." This month the campaign held a two-day event for forum members at a casino, with a video game tournament, panel discussions and speeches.

A ban threat answered with a nose emoji

O'Donnell has said repeatedly that users who espouse racist or antisemitic views will be banned, and at times he threatened to delete posts. In the spring he warned that "even a hint of antisemitism" would get a member "instantly banned." Users answered with an emoji of an exaggerated nose and "GOY," a sometimes disparaging Yiddish term for non-Jews. Some users who espoused Nazi sympathies were indeed kicked off, but many of their posts remain. In 2024 a user wrote that O'Donnell's political career could face trouble "if someone does a vulnerability study and they find this server."

Nearly 200 banned, some posts missed

Campaign spokesman Keith Schipper said O'Donnell "has zero tolerance for hate" in his forum. Since becoming aware of the issue in the spring, the campaign "dedicated a staffer to monitor" and to "remove people that spew racist and antisemitic vitriol," Schipper said. "Unfortunately, some posts have been missed over the years." He said nearly 200 users have been banned because of hateful rhetoric, including many of the people flagged by the AP. O'Donnell said this year that he had been unaware of the resurgence of antisemitism; he told a conservative outlet in September that he had thought it was "something we don't have to worry about anymore," and that it had gone "under the surface" and been "percolating there."

A podcast guest and a Mussolini mask

The AP also noted that O'Donnell wrote on the forum that he rejects fascism, while also sharing a photo of himself wearing what he said was a mask of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator and key Hitler ally, at a Halloween party. Jewish Insider reported that he hosted Charles Cornish-Dale, a far-right influencer with Nazi sympathies, on his podcast, "The Marty O'Donnell Show." The candidate has also staunchly defended Israel and condemned bigotry — a contrast with much of what the review turned up.

A researcher calls it coded hate speech

Wendy Melillo, an associate professor of journalism at American University who researches extremist chat rooms, told the AP that such comments are clearly "coded antisemitic hate speech." Deacon Dameron, a former group member who said he was banned for calling another user a "dork," said the problem was never a handful of outliers: "It wasn't a couple of crazies. The popular sentiment was, 'Yes, slavery should be legal.'"

A Las Vegas-area seat in the fight for the House

O'Donnell is the Republican nominee in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Susie Lee is seeking another term. The district covers part of the Las Vegas area, and both parties see it as part of the fight for control of the House. On Oct. 9, the Cook Political Report shifted 18 House race ratings toward Democrats; Lee's seat was rated "Likely Democrat." The party's House campaign arm has placed O'Donnell on its "MAGA Majority" list.

Ballots are already being cast

Nevada's Election Day is Nov. 3, and early voting opened Oct. 17 and runs through Oct. 30 — the same day the AP's findings were published. Whether the forum will move voters in the Las Vegas suburbs is an open question. What is not in doubt is that a chat room that began as a fan club is now part of a congressional campaign's fundraising and organizing machinery, and, with it, part of the record that reporters and opponents are reading.