Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

Ted Cruz: ‘Vote For The Democrat’ Over The Republican Nazi Candidate

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz urged voters in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District outside of Chicago to vote for the Democratic candidate rather than the man who won the Republican nomination — a former leader of the American Nazi Party.

Arthur Jones, whose campaign website includes a section called “Holocaust?” in which he calls the genocide of six million Jews “the biggest blackest lie in history,” won the party primary in his heavily Democratic district after no other candidate entered.

“This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress,” Cruz wrote on Twitter. “To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.”

The chairman of the state Republican Party condemned Jones when he won the primary in March, saying that the party would “explore all options to oppose Mr. Jones’ candidacy — whether that be supporting an independent candidate for IL-03 after the primary, encouraging a write-in campaign, and potentially other options.”

The party had in the past forced Jones off the ballot by challenging his petition signatures, but said this time that they had no reason to question the validity and number of his signatures. After the deadline for registering third-party candidates for the ballot came and went last week, a party spokesman said that the petition process was too difficult for prospective candidates and that they would try to find a write-in candidate.

When informed by Politico that the Republican Party wouldn’t field a third-party candidate on the ballot, Jones reportedly laughed.

“I snookered them,” he said. “I played by the rules, what can I say?”

Jones went on to say that he is running to counter the “two-party, Jew-party, queer-party system,” and has refused to file donor donation with the Federal Election Commission because, in his words, “I’m not going to give the Jews an opportunity to harass my supporters until after the election.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.