During the 2016 and 2018 Republican Party primary elections in Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, he spouted various racist, white nationalist, nativist, protectionist, and antisemitic views.
[5][7][8] An April 2018 article in The Daily Beast declared that Nehlen was becoming one of the highest profile white nationalists in the United States, but he has been unsuccessful politically, also losing the support of Breitbart News.
[9] He became a successful businessman and had stints at Deltech Engineering/United Dominion Industries and SPX Corporation,[10] and he served until 2016 as the Senior VP of Operations at Neptune-Benson LLC, a subsidiary of Evoqua Water Technologies.
[26] On December 14, 2017, Nehlen's campaign for the 2018 congressional election released a statement calling for a federal law banning large social media companies from censoring or restricting 'lawful speech' (speech protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution) on their platforms.
[27] However, Nehlen's campaign has posted private phone and email addresses without their consent on the website and then tweeted a link to them.
"[35] Nehlen once posted on Twitter a picture of Paul Ryan and Randy Bryce being dropped out of a helicopter, a reference to death flights, a method of executing political opponents used by South American autocratic governments during the late 20th century.
[45] In April 2018, Nehlen allegedly doxed alt-right people that he saw as too moderate, willing to compromise, or unwilling to take militant street action.
[48][49] For his run in the 2016 Wisconsin's 1st congressional district primaries, he received endorsements from Breitbart News and the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund and people such as Laura Ingraham and Sarah Palin.
Assistant District Attorney Haley Johnson said the ballot selfie was "technically a violation" of law, but decided not to issue criminal charges, stating Nehlen had "ignorantly posted the image to draw attention to his candidacy," and not vote buying.
"[53] Nehlen ran again in the 2018 Republican primary against Nick Polce for the seat vacated by Paul Ryan, who was retiring.
[58] Callum Borchers of The Washington Post said "Breitbart's move is political calculus" because it "needs to align itself with politicians who can win to help regain the appearance of influence Moore's defeat damaged.
"[59] On February 13, 2018, Wisconsin GOP spokesman Alec Zimmerman said, "Nehlen and his ideas have no place in the Republican Party."
Ryan's campaign spokesman Kevin Seifert said, "It has long been clear that Paul Nehlen holds bigoted views."