More Than 56,000 Vote For Nazi Leader In Illinois Congressional Race
Arthur Jones, a Republican candidate for Congress from Chicago. Image by YouTube
By Aiden Pink November 9, 2018
Neo-Nazi Arthur Jones lost his longshot bid for an Illinois congressional seat on Tuesday. But he still received more than 56,000 votes.
Jones, a former American Nazi Party leader, ran as a Republican candidate in the heavily-Democratic Third District outside Chicago. He was able to make the ballot because he was the only person to run in the Republican primary. He was condemned by the state Republican Party and the Republican Jewish Coalition, but they were unable to remove him from the ballot.
With more than 97% of precincts reporting at midnight early Wednesday, Jones was losing to incumbent Rep. Dan Lipinski 73.5%-26.5% — but that still meant that Jones received more than 56,000 votes, even after months of coverage in local media about his hateful views.
Jones’s campaign website includes a section called “Holocaust?” in which he calls the genocide of six million Jews “the biggest blackest lie in history.” He told the Chicago Tribune that Jews who were held in concentration camps did not die in gas chambers. He also attempted to appeal to the Arab-American vote by posting an advertisement in a community paper promising to oppose all aid to Israel.
Jones now leads a group called the America First Committee, which according to the Anti-Defamation League is affiliated with a white supremacist organization.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
