Arthur Jones, Who Called Holocaust 'The Biggest, Blackest Lie,' Loses Bid For Congress, But Gets 56,000 Votes
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Arthur Jones, an openly anti-Semitic candidate who has called the Holocaust the "the biggest, blackest, lie in history" was easily defeated in his bid for Congress on Tuesday, but still received more than 56,000 votes.
Six-term Congressman Dan Lipinski defeated Jones on Tuesday, with more than 73 percent of the vote.
Still, despite being condemned as a Neo-Nazi by the Republican party, and urged to drop out by Gov. Bruce Rauner, Jones managed to get 56,350 votes, according to unofficial results from the Associated Press. That's more votes than six other losing congressional candidates in other races.
Jones, of Lyons, has run for Congress before, never before made it past the Republican primary. He also ran unopposed two years ago, but was removed from the ballot due to faulty petitions. This year, his petitions were not challenged, and no other Republicans have filed to run in the heavily Democratic district spanning parts of Chicago and the southwest suburbs.
Jones' campaign website openly calls the Holocaust "the biggest, blackest, lie in history," claiming there is no proof 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, "other than a few professional concentration camp survivors."
The site also features photos of him holding up a sign that says "Muslim Ban – Yes, Sharia Law – No," speaking at an Aryan Nations 2014 World Congress in Louisiana, speaking at a KKK rally in North Carolina, and shredding the flag of Israel.
On his site, Jones compares Jews to "blood-thirsty criminal vampires" and claims Jews are responsible for 300 million murders.
That ad contained the logo for Yalla Vote, the voter registration campaign of the Arab American Institute.
The group views Jones as a hatemonger.
Arab American Institute founder James Zogby described Jones as "a white nationalist who has anti-Semitic, homophobic, and anti-immigration views."
"We don't want to be identified with that at all," he said.
Zogby sent Jones a "cease and desist" letter, telling him to stop using their logo.
Jones pointed out the same logo is on a large image of Democratic candidate for governor J.B. Pritzker in the same newspaper. He said the publisher, not he, put the logo on his ad.
"He thought if there was a Republican with some guts willing to put an ad in his paper, he was willing to take the ad, and he put it in there, and just encouraged people to vote," Jones said.
A representative of the Arab American paper confirmed a layout editor, who doesn't speak English, placed the Yalla Vote logo on Jones' ad.
