A Republican running for City Council in heavily conservative and Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn neighborhoods has sent out mailers tying Democratic incumbent Simcha Felder to socialist mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani.
“That’s the Democratic Party. Felder Mamdani Team. They will work together. That’s what Democrats do,” Republican Harold “Heshy” Tischler’s campaign says in the mailer sent to voters in the 44th District that includes Borough Park, Flatbush and Midwood in southern Brooklyn.
“And that means the Mamdani Felder Democratic Party team will be WORKING AGAINST US,” the mailer said. “Felder Mamdani means LESS COPS, HIGHER TAXES. Stand up against the Mamdani Felder Democratic team.”
The campaign lit shows a picture of Mamdani next Felder and then a beaming Tischler underneath an image of the American flag.
Felder, who has served in the council and state Senate since 2002, is a conservative Democrat with little in common with democratic socialist Mamdani.
He even caucused with Republicans in the state Senate for several years and provided the deciding vote to keep them in the majority.
A staunch supporter of Israel, Felder has not endorsed the Israel-bashing Mamdani.
But he’s not the only Democrat feeling the heat from Republicans over the lefty Queens assemblyman clinching the party’s mayoral nomination.
The National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, the NYS Republican State Party and suburban GOP candidates have been using Mamdani as the bogeyman in races across the state and country to scare voters by tying their opponents to the left-wing candidate.
The Staten Island Republican Party has even mentioned Mamdani to score points in judicial races.
Felder laughed off being associated with Mamdani.
“I used to have a much nicer trimmed beard than [Mamdani] when I was his age,” Felder quipped.
He also noted that he’s running on the Conservative and Law Order ballot lines and had run on the Republican line in past races.
One of his former campaign strategists said voters in the district won’t be fooled by the smear.
“Simcha Felder is well known in the community and his support is tremendous. Everything he says and does is taken at face value,” said O’Brien “OB” Murray, who ran Felder’s first campaign for state Senate in 2012.
Tischler, a conservative radio host, is a controversial figure.
He pleaded guilty to charges in 2021 that he egged on a mob to attack a reporter during an anti-lockdown protest amid the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
Tischler was sentenced to 10 days of community service after copping to a misdemeanor charge.
