{"id":18624,"date":"2018-10-16T03:23:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T03:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18624"},"modified":"2018-10-16T03:23:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T03:23:28","slug":"us-midterms-ads-accuse-democrats-of-terror-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18624","title":{"rendered":"US midterms ads accuse Democrats of ‘terror’ ties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Correction 15\/10\/2018: <\/span>This article has been corrected to say that Duncan Hunter was indicted on allegations he illegally used $250,000 in campaign funds, not $250m as previously stated. <\/p>\n

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A number of midterm campaign ads have attempted to link Democratic<\/a> candidates in tight Congressional races to “terrorism”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Slated for November 6, the midterm elections<\/a>\u00a0are\u00a0largely viewed as a\u00a0referendum<\/a>\u00a0on President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>. Voters will\u00a0decide all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 seats in the Senate and 39 governorships in US states and territories.<\/p>\n

Although campaign ads attacking opponents’ records are common from candidates on all sides of the political spectrum, a number of ads – many funded by a leading Republican Super PAC – have drawn backlash from watchdogs, factcheckers and rights groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most recently, California Republican Duncan Hunter, who has been indicted on charges of violating campaign finance laws,\u00a0<\/span>has drawn criticism over ads his campaign ran attacking his opponent’s Palestinian background.<\/p>\n

Hunter, who has held California’s 50th district’s House seat for the last decade, was indicted in August on charges of using upwards of $250,000 of campaign funds for personal purposes.<\/p>\n

In late September, Hunter was leading Ammar Campa-Najjar, the Democratic challenger and former Obama White House aide, by eight points. But a more recent poll, conducted by University of California, Berkeley for the Los Angeles Times, shows Hunter’s lead thinning, putting the Republican at 49 percent and Campa-Najjar at 47 percent.<\/p>\n

With the race tightening, the increasingly embattled Hunter’s campaign released controversial ads attacking Campa-Najjar, a 29-year-old Palestinian-Mexican-American progressive.<\/p>\n

In one ad last month, Hunter inaccurately implied that Campa-Najjar was a “radical Muslim” who sought to “infiltrate” Congress.<\/p>\n

The Republican incumbent also called Campa-Najjar a “security threat”, attempting to link the Democratic challenger to his deceased grandfather, who was involved in planning the deadly 1972 Munich Olympics attack on Israeli athletes.<\/p>\n

A Washington Post article fact-checking Hunter’s claims deemed them false.<\/p>\n

Campa-Najjar, who was born 16 years after his grandfather, Muhammed Yussef al-Najjar, was killed by Israeli agents,\u00a0<\/span>says he was raised by his Mexican mother and identifies as a Christian.<\/p>\n

Hunter’s spokesperson had not replied to Al Jazeera’s request for\u00a0 comment at the time of publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“There are two candidates in this race: One of us was indicted by the FBI, the other one was cleared by the FBI to work at the White House,” Campa-Najjar recently told voters, as reported by Vox.<\/p>\n

Trump campaigned on promises to crack down on Muslims, pledging to stop Muslims from entering the US and at one point proposing a database to monitor Muslim Americans. After entering office, Trump introduced a controversial travel ban that blocked entry to the US for citizens of several Muslim-majority countries.<\/p>\n

Accusations of ‘terrorism’ links<\/h2>\n

Hunter’s attacks on Campa-Najjar are part of a broader wave of Republican ads alleging their challengers are linked to “terrorism”.<\/p>\n

In Ohio, Representative Steve Chabot, an outspoken supporter of Trump’s travel ban, has attempted to link his opponent, Aftab Pureval, to “terrorism” owing to the 36-year-old Democratic challenger’s former employment at a law firm that settled terrorism-related lawsuits against Libya.<\/p>\n

Pureval was not involved in the settlements, which were approved by Congress, the New York Times reported.<\/p>\n

Many other ads, which have been produced by Republican Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, have also been criticised by fact-checking watchdogs and civil rights groups.<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, the Congressional Leadership Fund targeted Tom Malinowski for arguing that Guantanamo Bay detainees should receive due process while he was Washington director of Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n

In one ad, the Super PAC claimed Malinowski “criticised America for waging war against al-Qaeda”.<\/p>\n

In September, Monmouth University released a poll putting Malinowski eight points ahead of his Republican opponent, incumbent Leonard Lance in the state’s 7th district.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, a former undercover CIA operative, was targeted over her former part-time teaching job at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Spanberger doesn’t want us to know that she taught at an Islamic school nicknamed ‘Terror High,’ a terrorist breeding ground,” the ad claims.<\/p>\n

She currently leads her incumbent Republican opponent, Dave Brat, 47 percent to 42 percent in Virginia’s 7th district House race.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Spanberger’s campaign dismissed the ads in a statement to local media, saying they were “laughable considering Abigail’s record of service in law enforcement, at the CIA and in our community”.<\/p>\n

Super PACs are barred from directly coordinating with campaigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights organisation, has criticised several other\u00a0instances<\/a> of anti-Muslim<\/a> sentiment throughout the midterm elections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Correction 15\/10\/2018: This article has been corrected to say that Duncan Hunter was indicted on allegations he illegally used $250,000 in campaign funds, not $250m as previously stated. A number of midterm campaign ads have attempted to link Democratic candidates in tight Congressional races to “terrorism”.\u00a0 Slated for November 6, the midterm elections\u00a0are\u00a0largely viewed as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}