Sen. Ted Cruz’s comments came after a POLITICO story detailed the Illinois Republican Party’s failed efforts to oust a Holocaust denier from the ballot or offer up an alternative for Republican voters. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Ted Cruz: ‘Vote for the Democrat’ over the GOP Nazi

CHICAGO — Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday urged residents of a Chicago-area congressional district to vote for a Democrat if they must, to avoid giving even one vote to an avowed Nazi who won the GOP nomination.

Cruz’s comments, made on Twitter, came after a POLITICO story detailed the Illinois Republican Party’s failed efforts to oust Holocaust denier Arthur Jones from the ballot or offer up an alternative for Republican voters.


“This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress,” tweeted Cruz. “To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.”

This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress. To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes. https://t.co/9WYlvCMKaF — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 29, 2018

The tweet generated nearly 12,000 likes and 4,900 retweets by Friday evening.

Jones is running against Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski in a heavily Democratic district that includes portions of Chicago and the south suburbs.

This week, state Republicans let a deadline pass that would have allowed them to run someone as a third-party candidate to provide Republican voters with an alternative candidate to vote for. The GOP said the ballot requirements, including having to collect more than 14,000 signatures, was too burdensome and costly in a district Democrats dominate.

Instead, the party said it will seek to draft a write-in candidate for the general election.

Republicans missed several chances, including in the primary, to challenge Jones or oust him from the ballot. The party failed to recruit a candidate to challenge him in the March primary where he went unopposed, did not draft a write-in candidate in the primary, and failed to knock him off the ballot by challenging his signature petitions.

Jones celebrated his role in sidelining Republicans, telling POLITICO this week: “I snookered them.”



