The Republican Jewish Coalition has denounced Arthur Jones, Holocaust-denier and former head of the American Nazi Party, who won a Republican primary for an Illinois congressional seat on Tuesday.
“Arthur Jones is a Nazi, not a Republican. It is a disgrace that he has won the Republican nomination,” RJC chairman Norman Coleman said in a statement.
“Like the RNC and the Illinois GOP, the RJC has flat-out rejected Arthur Jones. Jones does not represent Republican values, and he doesn’t deserve to have an ‘R’ after his name on the ballot,” he stated. “The GOP didn’t invite Jones into the party; the only mistake was not running a candidate in an uncompetitive, safe-Democrat district.”
“There is no place for Nazis and white supremacists in the Republican Party,” affirmed Coleman.
Jones, 70, who had unsuccessfully tried to obtain the nomination five times before, easily won the nomination for Illinois Third Congressional district—a heavily Democratic district outside of Chicago—after the Republican Party failed to put up another candidate in the race against him.
The Illinois Republican Party has also condemned Jones as a “Nazi” and urged voters not to support him.
“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.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum also published a statement regarding Jones.
“Hatred and anti-Semitism have no place in our politics or in the public square,” said museum director Sara J. Bloomfield. “Whenever proponents of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazi ideology or Holocaust denial seek a public platform, civic and political leaders from across the political spectrum must continue to speak out and condemn those ideas. We commend the unequivocal rejection of Jones’s anti-Semitism and racism by leaders like Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Illinois Republican Party. The broad repudiation of his toxic ideology and his candidacy speaks louder than the hatred of one man.”
Jones, a former member of the American Nazi Party, has been active in the white-supremacist movement for years, but has attempted to downplay his ties ahead of the election.
“This stuff about being a Nazi, that’s in the past,” he said earlier this week.
Jones will now face Democratic incumbent Daniel Lipinski, who has held the seat since 2005. No Republican has won this district since 1975.