Gerald Carlson, a former member of the American Nazi Party and a self-proclaimed white supremacist leader, was trounced yesterday in the special Republican Congressional primary in Michigan’s Fourth District, according to unofficial returns. He received only 701 votes of about 47,000 votes cost, running fifth in a field of seven candidates who were seeking the seat vacated by David Stockman, President Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Carlson won the Republican nomination for Congress in Michigan’s 15th District last August when he gathered 53,570 votes, 55 percent of the total vote. He was defeated last November when he received only 32 percent of the vote.
The nomination yesterday was won by Mark Siljander, a Michigan State Representative, who received 18,055 votes. Siljander will run in a special election against John Rodebush, who won the Democratic nomination with 1974 votes. The Fourth District is in southern Michigan and is conservative. It has elected Republican Congressmen since 1932. The 15th district includes Detroit suburbs.
When Carlson won the Republican nomination in August, Republican officials expressed dismay and when he received 32 percent of the vote in
November GOP officials attributed it to the Reagan landslide victory. At that time Carlson lost to William Ford, the Democratic nominee, who received 68 percent of the vote. Carlson reportedly had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the National States Rights Party, the John Birch Society and the American Independent Party before joining the American Nazi Party.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
