A 70-year-old man with an entire section of his campaign website dedicated to Holocaust denial won the Republican primary for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional district after running unopposed.
According to ThinkProgress, over 20,000 Republicans voted for Arthur Jones in the primary, despite news of his anti-Semitic platform breaking last month.
Arthur Jones calls the Holocaust a “racket” and the “biggest, blackest, lie in history” under a section of his campaign website labeled “Holocaust?” His district includes parts of southwestern Chicago.
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket,” Jones told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Pictures on Jones’ website show him speaking at a rally supporting President Donald Trump shortly before his election and speaking at a white supremacist rally in 2014. Jones, the former leader of the American Nazi Party, has unsuccessfully run for office since the 1970s, according to the news outlet.
“Well, it’s absolutely the best opportunity in my entire political career,” Jones told the Chicago Tribune. “Every time I’ve run it’s been against a Republican who follows this politically correct nonsense. This time they screwed up.”
The Republican Party in Illinois distanced themselves from Jones before the election in a statement provided to the news outlet.
“The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones,” Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider said. “We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”
In his interview with the Tribune, Jones said he did not support interracial marriage or integration in schools. He also questioned whether people of color should have the right to vote, saying he doesn’t “believe in equality–period.”
In 2016, Jones tried to run but was removed from the ballot for “flagrant disregard of the election code.”
Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District has been represented solely by Democrats since 1975.
You can read more about Jones’ campaign here.
This article has been updated.