About 100 days out from the election, a common theme has emerged in the campaigns of incumbent Max Rose and challenger Nicole Malliotakis. Each is portraying the other as misrepresenting themselves to the voters.
It’s an attack line key to the race in the 11th congressional District, which includes all of Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn.
A new Rose ad seeks to build on the Democrat’s case that his Republican rival is "the first-class fraud."
The TV spot claims that as the COVID crisis hit, Malliotakis was being Photoshopped into a picture, voting for hospital cuts and protecting nursing homes from lawsuits.
“It’s everything you hate about politics, all in one person. Nicole Malliotakis, the first-class fraud," the narrator reads.
But Malliotakis and her allies have sought to label Rose as the deceitful one.
National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Emmer said this in a recent interview with The Cats Roundtable: “You’re currently represented by Max Rose, who frankly got elected on a fraud. Rose pontificated in an op-ed piece months ago on why he opposed impeachment, then he voted to impeach President Trump.”
The Rose campaign has a website called Nicolethefraud.com, accusing Malliotakis of talking out of both sides of her mouth.
Malliotakis, in a recent tweet, used the hashtag #Maxthefraud, knocking Rose for backing funding cuts to private schools.
“He voted for it anyway, because he’s Nancy Pelosi’s rubber stamp," she says in the attached video.
Asked about Rose’s new ad, a Malliotakis spokesman called Rose desperate and said he’s distracting from issues like rising crime and calls to defund the police.
Both the NRCC and the Democratic National Congressional Committee regularly send attack memos on the other’s choice for the seat.
Neither has yet to disclose what they plan to spend on the race.
Political action committees are also weighing in. House Majority Forward this month released a pro-Rose ad as part of a $4 million buy on behalf of several Democrats. The GOP-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund in April booked a $1.4 million ad reservation in NY-11.
Rose's campaign has a distinct fundraising edge. Federal filings show that as of late June, he had raised $5.7 million for his bid. Malliotakis, a state Assembly member who ran for mayor in 2017, had raised $1.8 million.