Candidate with alleged Nazi ties, felonies approved for NC ballot over GOP challenge
A Republican candidate for the North Carolina House, who a top GOP strategist referred to as a “Nazi,” will remain on the ballot despite having prior felony convictions.
The State Board of Elections voted unanimously to allow Joseph Gibson III to appear on the ballot, finding that his citizenship rights had been restored.
Gibson, a Rockingham County podcaster with past felony convictions, lost a primary election to Rep. Reece Pyrtle in 2022. He filed to run again this year and quickly drew scrutiny from members of his own party.
The North Carolina House GOP caucus director, Stephen Wiley, first raised the alarm about Gibson after finding out he had been convicted of several felonies, including robbery, while living in Connecticut.
Wiley said he also discovered that Gibson had ties to a neo-Nazi organization.
“He’s got pretty despicable views and doesn’t have any room in polite society as far as I’m concerned,” Wiley told The News & Observer.
The chair of the Rockingham County GOP, Diane Parnell, filed an official challenge to Gibson’s candidacy in December.
The state board and the Rockingham County Board of Elections have each heard Gibson’s case twice in the past few weeks, but Tuesday’s decision appears to be final.
Wiley anticipated this result, saying before the meeting, “I fully expect us to lose and for Mr. Gibson to remain on the ballot — and then I fully expect Rep. Pyrtle will be able to handily beat him on the primary date.”
Case bounces between state and local board
Gibson was initially removed from the ballot by the Rockingham County Board of Elections on Jan. 3. The board found that he had been convicted of a felony in Connecticut and had not “presented evidence that his rights have been restored.”
The board also said that Gibson failed to appear at his own hearing.
He appealed to the state board, which sent the case back to Rockingham, asking the board to determine if Gibson’s citizenship rights had been restored.
The Rockingham board then approved Gibson’s candidacy on party lines, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans voting against. In the board’s decision, it said that Gibson had completed his probation in 2008 for crimes committed in Connecticut and had not been convicted of a felony in North Carolina since.
Parnell then appealed back to the state board, which ruled in Gibson’s favor on Tuesday.
At the meeting, Gibson characterized the challenge as “political assassination” by the GOP, reiterating that he had served his sentence for his convictions and his citizenship rights had been restored.
Alleged ties to neo-Nazi groups
A report from the Anti-Defamation League describes Gibson as a “white supremacist and anti-government extremist.”
The report says that the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) described Gibson as “one of our members in NC” and supported his campaign online.
The report also says that Gibson participated in livestream events hosted by the NSM and in one instance messaged the channel saying “88,” a dog whistle used by white supremacists to mean “Heil Hitler.”
Attempts by The N&O to reach Gibson were not successful on Tuesday, but he has denied being a Nazi, telling WRAL that he had never supported the NSM or been to one of their rallies.
“I think that’s coming from my podcast because I have had them call in,” he told WRAL last week. “But I’ve had Black Panthers call in. I have all sorts of people call in. I believe in the First Amendment.”
