Drawing Wide Interest
The campaign to represent New York’s First Congressional District, pitting the Republican incumbent, Representative Lee Zeldin, against Perry Gershon, the Democratic nominee, is drawing national attention.
The Hill, an online and print newspaper that covers Congress, published an article on Sunday quoting Mr. Gershon’s comments made at a Democratic primary forum in East Marion in February. The Hill quotes Mr. Gershon from a video it said had been sent by a Republican operative in which he said that he was “struck by the parallels between the rise of Donald Trump and the rise of Hitler back then. And I just said to myself that we have to stand up and make sure this doesn’t happen in America.”
One of the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., seized on Mr. Gershon’s remarks. “How sick and deranged does someone has [sic] to be to compare [President Trump] to a madman who ruthlessly slaughtered millions of people?” he asked on Twitter. He went on to ask that voters support Mr. Zeldin, “who is running against this leftwing nut job” in New York’s First Congressional District.
In his own tweet, Mr. Zeldin wrote that “My opponent says he decided to run against me bc of his comparison of Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler of Nazi, Germany, who murdered millions of Jews & other people. This craziness is unhinged and disgusting.”
The conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh also weighed in, calling Mr. Gershon a “looney toon,” according to Mr. Gershon’s campaign, which is embracing the controversy.
In emails soliciting campaign donations, the campaign has also cited Mr. Trump’s tweet. “They know the blue wave is coming,” an email sent on Monday stated, referring to predictions of Democratic gains in the House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 election, “and they’re desperate to protect the President’s favorite yes man.”
The email goes on to say that Mr. Zeldin’s record includes “how he voted to take health care away from millions of Americans, is encouraging the [National Rifle Association] to have veto power over common-sense gun violence laws, and now he’s trying to defund Planned Parenthood.”
Responding to Mr. Trump’s tweet, Mr. Gershon’s campaign said in an email on Tuesday that “Team Zeldin must really be in trouble if their best friends are already lashing out at Perry.”