Neo-Nazi Arthur Jones becomes Republican nominee in Illinois congressional race

A Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi has officially become the GOP nominee for a congressional race in Illinois.

Arthur Jones won the GOP nomination Tuesday night after running uncontested in the Republican primary in the 3rd Congressional District, which includes the Chicago area. He was declared the winner by The Associated Press shortly after polls closed.

Jones, 70, has previously run for Congress unsuccessfully seven times, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, but he may have been bolstered by the recent rise of alt-right groups. Jones’ campaign website details his unapologetically racist and anti-Semitic views, including praising the Confederate flag as “a symbol of White pride and White resistance” and describing the Holocaust, in which an estimated 6 million Jews were killed by Nazis, as a “racket” and “the biggest, blackest, lie in history.”

The Anti-Defamation League says Jones has also been active in the Populist Party, the National Socialist White People’s Party and the American Nazi Party, according to Newsweek.

No other Republicans entered the 3rd Congressional District race, but his party has long disavowed Jones and does not plan to support him in the upcoming 2018 midterm election.

“He is a Nazi whose disgusting, bigoted views have no place in our nation’s discourse,” Illinois GOP chairman Tim Schneider said in a statement Tuesday.

Jones denied being racist in an interview with CNN last month.

“I don’t call myself a Nazi. I call myself an American patriot and statesman,” Jones said.

According to CNN, Jones is still a long shot to win the congressional seat.

He’ll be running against conservative incumbent Rep. Dan Lipinski, the Democratic nominee who has held the seat in the majority blue district for more than a decade. Lipinski’s greatest challenge is expected to be progressive political newcomer Marie Newman, who has already drawn the support of liberal lawmakers like Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

An independent candidate, Mat Tomkowiak, withdrew from the race earlier.