Search

Holocaust denier, anti-Semite wins Republican congressional race

By default, outspoken Holocaust denier Arthur Jones won a Chicago-area GOP Congressional District primary. 

By: World Israel News Staff

Arthur Jones, an outspoken Holocaust denier, anti-Semite and white supremacist, on Tuesday won the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago.

Jones, 70, is a retired insurance agent who has run disastrous campaigns for elected office in the Chicago area and Milwaukee since the 1970s.

Since the 1990s, Jones has joined in the GOP 3rd Congressional District primary seven times, but has never come close to being a viable contender. However, this time, to Jones’ amazement, he was the only one on the Republican ballot. Republicans apparently did not bother to seek a credible candidate because the district is overwhelmingly Democrat. Thus, Jones won by default.

“Even if only myself and my wife voted for me, I’d win the primary because the Republican Party screwed up big time,” Jones said, the New York Times reported.

The Illinois Republican Party, seeking to distance itself from Jones in recent weeks, campaigned in the district with fliers and robocalls, urging voters to “stop Illinois Nazis.” Jones said he had received three such calls himself.

“Arthur Jones is not a real Republican — he is a Nazi whose disgusting, bigoted views have no place in our nation’s discourse,” Tim Schneider, the Illinois Republican Party chairman, said in a statement.

Schneider said the party had urged voters “to skip over his name when they go to the polls” and, moving forward, planned on “vehemently opposing Jones with real campaign dollars.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has been keeping track of Jones for years.

“Arthur Jones, who proudly displays Holocaust denial, xenophobia and racism on his blog and website, has a long history of hateful, extremist and anti-Semitic views,” said Lonnie Nasatir, regional director of the ADL Chicago-Upper Midwest Region.

“For example, in 2009, he protested the opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, and continues to espouse absurd conspiracy theories questioning the deaths of millions of Jews. He has spoken publicly at numerous neo-Nazi rallies and events, expressing xenophobic policies based in racial and religious hatred. He is, by every definition, an anti-Semite and unrepentant bigot,” she stated.