Holocaust-denier and neo-Nazi Arthur Jones has filed to again run for the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Illinois 3rd Congressional District.
Real estate broker Catherine O’Shea and Will County board member Mike Fricilone have also filed to run in the Republican primary.
Fricilone told The Chicago Sun Times, “It is unfortunate that we have someone with his views and thoughts that runs.”
He said he filed “to have a credible candidate” on the ballot.
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.
In a statement to The Chicago Sun Times, Illinois Republican Party chairman Tim Schneider said his party “vehemently condemns Arthur Jones’ candidacy. His racism and bigotry have no place in our party or American politics. As we did in 2016 and 2018, we will oppose his candidacy in every way possible.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition slammed Jones.
“Like the Illinois GOP, we vehemently oppose Jones’s candidacy. Jones is a Nazi, not a Republican,” RJC spokesperson Neil Strauss emailed JNS. “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,” said Strauss. “We worked with the [Republican National Committee] and the Illinois GOP to make sure Jones had no institutional support.”
