North Dakota State Rep. Nico Rios’ short time in office has already been marred by controversy. In Dec. 2023, Rios, who represents the 23rd District, was arrested for DUI after refusing a chemical test. Body camera footage from the arrest shows Rios making homophobic and racist remarks. Rios told one officer, who had an English accent, that migrants are “com[ing] into your country” to “rape your women.”

While Rios apologized for the incident on X (formerly Twitter), he has resisted calls from within his own party to resign. But Rios’ troubles don’t end there. Like two of his colleagues, Rep. Matthew Heilman and Rep. Brandon Prichard, Rios has a habit of making racist statements on social media and promoting content from explicitly white nationalist X accounts.

On several occasions Rios has used his professional account on X to voice support for the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy. This conspiracy posits that there is a plot to “replace” white people in Western countries, like the U.S., with immigrants of color. It has inspired several acts of terrorism in recent years.

On Dec. 6, 2023, Rios reposted an account which praised then-presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for mentioning the “Great Replacement” during a GOP debate. “Vivek having the courage to say what other Republicans are afraid to even talk about in private,” Rios wrote. “Thank you Vivek.” On Dec. 14, 2023, Rios followed this up by calling Ramaswamy “more based than Trump.”

That same day, Rios shared a post by white nationalist Scott Greer. Greer, who once worked for white supremacist Richard Spencer and his online publication Radix Journal, shared a screenshot of a post by Sen. John Cornyn, who touted a friendly meeting with an Eritrean Uber driver. “Republican Senator finds his ideal American,” Greer wrote mockingly.

In response, Rios declared, “Yes you are being replaced and yes RINOs will openly brag about it to your face. Senator John Cornball is an America Last RINO traitor. Get this man [the fuck] out the Senate already.”

On Nov. 23, 2023, Rios complained that “in Texas I believe over 50% of first graders come from households where English is either not spoken or the second language. An entire culture in Texas has been replaced due to open borders.”

Rios has made a number of other racist and xenophobic posts. In one from Nov. 4, 2023, Rios wrote, “Only governments who hate their people take in refugees.” The next day, he claimed that “hate crime laws exist to make whites, straight people, and men second class citizens in the eyes of the law.”

On Sept. 30, 2023 he posted “Import the third world. Become the third world.” And in Dec. 2023, Rios responded to someone who called for “lethal force” on the Southern border by suggesting a “better way”: cutting off welfare, food, and supplies. “If they hear people come here are freezing and starving they’ll stop coming,” he explained.

Like his friends, Reps. Heilman and Prichard, Rios has frequently interacted with and promoted content from white nationalists.

Last June, Scott Greer shared a story from the conservative New York Post about the U.S. military offering “legal migrants” a “path to citizenship amid [a] recruiting shortfall.” Greer called it a “Late Roman Empire moment,” and Rios reposted Greer’s message:

In Sept. 2023, he shared a post from Greer with a photo of Donald Trump and his supporters, which he dubbed “MAGA in one image”:

Rios has reposted content from Paul Ray Ramsey, a white nationalist who mocked the Holocaust as the “modern religion of the West,” and Jake Lloyd Colglazier, a white nationalist with ties to Nick Fuentes and his racist “groyper” movement. In Sept. 2023, he reposted an anti-immigrant message by Kevin DeAnna, who blogs under the pen name “James Kirkpatrick” for the hate group VDARE:

In December, Rios celebrated the holidays by reposting content from Justin Dean Cookson, a white supremacist who uses the pseudonym “Aristophanes.”

Cookson posted a doctored photo of a white woman pointing to her house, which is decorated with a sign reading “Happy Holidays Wishers Keep Moving – This Is A Merry Christmas Neighborhood.” The sign in the original photo, circa 1923, bears a white supremacist, anti-Japanese message. Rios reposted this, adding Christmas-themed emojis:

On Nov. 23, 2023, he reposted a religiously-themed message from an account called “Sun Optimist.” A closer look at the account shows that it made posts denigrating Martin Luther King Jr., belittling the Holocaust, complaining about “Moslems” and “Jewish pornographers,” and attacking Vivek Ramaswamy for being “an Indian and a Hindu.”