Media Matters is reporting that Kobach, who is running for Governor of Kansas as a Republican, features on his website a column with the claim that “75 percent of those on the most wanted criminals lists in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens.” The problem here is twofold. The stated fact is wrong, and the source for the claim is Peter Gemma, a white nationalist agitator.
Gemma has extensive ties to racist movements. In 2005, he organized an event for David Irving, a notorious Holocaust denier. Gemma has in the past worked for the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group whose “Statement of Principles” affirms the belief that “the American people and government should remain European in their composition and character” and opposition to “all efforts to mix the races of mankind.”
In early August, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that political consultants claimed that Kobach’s campaign hired three white nationalists to work on the campaign.
The Republican Party has been increasingly hospitable to open and avowed racists in the 2018 election cycle. “In at least five state and national races across the country, the Republican Party is dealing with an uncomfortable problem,” Vox noted in July. “Their party’s candidates are either a card-carrying Nazi, a Holocaust denier, a proud white supremacist, or all of the above.”