California Palestinian-Mexican Democratic Candidate Has ‘Ties To Terrorism,’ Republican Rival's Campaign Alleges

Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter from California, who is looking for reelection this year, released a half-a-minute campaign commercial Wednesday which suggested that his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, was a Muslim who had ties to terrorism.

“Ammar Campa-Najjar is working to infiltrate Congress,” the narrator in the video said. “He’s used three different names to hide his family’s ties to terrorism.”

Elaborating on the same allegation, Hunter told GOP women’s club in Ramona, California, on Monday that Campa-Najjar had legally removed his middle name, “Yasser,” and inserted a more Christian-sounding name, “Joseph.”

“His [campaign] signs should actually say: Ammar Joseph Campa or something,” Hunter said, Times of San Diego noted. “That is how hard, by the way, that the radical Muslims are trying to infiltrate the U.S. government. You had more Islamists run for office this year at the federal level than ever before in U.S. history.”

The video went on to add that the Democratic candidate’s grandfather “masterminded the Munich Olympic massacre” of 1972 without presenting any evidence to prove the accusation.

“Ammar Campa-Najjar, a risk we can’t ignore,” the narrator concluded.

The campaign ad was shared by anti-Muslim Twitter user Amy Jane Mekelburg and has since been retweeted more than a thousand times.

Incidentally, the campaign ad was uploaded on YouTube on the same day a spokesman for Hunter said their campaign had “heard” Campa-Najjar “claimed to be a Christian” and that the GOP candidate never said his opponent was of Islamic faith.

“He never made the claim that his opponent is Muslim,” Hunter's aide Mike Harrison said. “That’s for his opponent to answer.”

Meanwhile, according to a poll released Tuesday, Hunter had a lead against Campa-Najjar in the reelection bid, despite grappling with allegations of campaign money fraud. It showed the Republican as having the support of 49 percent of the voters in San Diego, as opposed to his opponent who had only 41 percent.

“One in 10 voters in this district think Hunter is probably guilty of campaign fraud, but they are going to vote for him anyway,” said Patrick Murray, director of the nonpartisan Monmouth University Polling Institute, Los Angeles Times reported

Hunter and his wife pleaded not guilty to charges brought on by a federal grand jury that the couple had illegally used campaign money to fund a lavish lifestyle, followed by filing false campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission.

So why is Hunter ahead in the polls despite being indicted on federal charges?

“Here’s the thing. He’s got his base,” UC San Diego political science professor Steve Erie said, another LA Times report quoted. “That’s east county, a lot of it rural, less educated, and it’s Trump country.… What you’re hearing people say is, ‘Well, he has been indicted, but we’re taking a wait-and-see attitude.’”

“He’s playing mini-Trump, saying it’s a partisan witch hunt, even though it’s by Republican appointees,” Erie added.