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A Republican Senate candidate from Oklahoma who has run into trouble over verbal gaffes was drawing fire again on Friday for saying black men have a “genetic predisposition” for a lower life expectancy than whites.

Dr. Tom Coburn, a Republican physician locked in a neck-and-neck struggle for a pivotal U.S. Senate seat, made the comment in a discussion of Social Security privatization during a locally televised debate on Wednesday night.

Coburn said black males were statistically more likely to die before they could benefit from Social Security.

“What kind of plan is that, that we are going to take from those who have a genetic predisposition of less life expectancy, that we are going to steal from those and give it to somebody else?” Coburn asked on Wednesday.

Oklahoma is solidly Republican, but Coburn’s largely self-inflicted political wounds have let his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Brad Carson, gain a narrow lead in surveys of likely voters.

Carson brushed aside Coburn’s remark during the debate, but black politicians in Oklahoma blasted Coburn on Friday.

Angela Monson, a Democratic state representative from Oklahoma City, said the suggestion that blacks are genetically inferior was “bizarre.”

“I think he was so bent on pushing the privatization of Social Security that he took this leap,” she said. “A leap off the deep end.”