The Illinois Republican Party is attempting to inform voters that Arthur Jones, a Holocaust-denier and neo-Nazi, is running again for the U.S. House of Representatives in the state’s 3rd Congressional District.
“We want to make sure that the Republicans, Democrats, any Illinois citizens know that this is not a candidate that we support, and we don’t want him winning the election,” Illinois Republican Party executive director Anthony Sarros told The Associated Press. “We hate this. We don’t want this to happen, and now I kind of want to know how this happened and how do we prevent this.”
Jones, who was once a member of the American Nazi Party, received 57,885 votes, losing in 2018 against incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski, as no other Republican entered the primary in the heavily Democratic congressional district.
“If I really believed the Holocaust had taken place, I wouldn’t have joined the Nazi Party,” he told The Daily Southtown last year.
This time round, however, Jones is not the only Republican running in the race.
Real estate broker Catherine O’Shea and Will County board member Mike Fricilone have also filed to run in the Republican primary.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has already slammed Jones.
“Like the Illinois GOP, we vehemently oppose Jones’ candidacy. Jones is a Nazi, not a Republican,” RJC spokesperson Neil Strauss emailed JNS earlier this month. “There are two actual Republicans running in this primary, and we look forward to one of them winning the nomination.”
“We strongly opposed Jones in the past,” he said. “We worked with the [Republican National Committee] and the Illinois GOP to make sure Jones had no institutional support.”
