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By Jennifer McEntee
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Reuters) – When a Democrat of Palestinian-Mexican descent who had never been a candidate in the general election was chosen to challenge a Republican candidate in a conservative California congressional district, few gave him a luck.
But the five-term US representative, Duncan Hunter, accused of misusing election campaign funds, has enough fears for Ammar Campa-Najjar to post an advertisement on YouTube accusing his rival of wanting to "hide his family's ties with terrorism". his Palestinian grandfather, who led a plot in 1972 to kill Israeli athletes at the Olympics.
The advertisement, released Wednesday, shows Hunter, a former US sailor who followed his father to Congress, dressed in camouflage.
Campa-Najjar, who was working at the White House of President Barack Obama, said in a statement that he was "sad to see MP Hunter lose his hold on reality".
Hunter's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Democrats must get 23 seats in the House of Representatives in the November 6 legislative elections if they want to get a majority and serve as a more effective counterweight to US President Donald Trump. Republicans can hardly afford to lose normally safe seats, like Hunter's, in a neighborhood that includes San Diego, as they seek to keep control of this room.
Polls show that Hunter keeps a comfortable lead over Campa-Najjar, but not as far as his 27 percentage point margin in 2016.
A Monmouth University survey of 401 electors, conducted between September 22 and 26, found that 53 percent of likely voters favored Hunter, compared to 38 percent for Campa-Najjar. The survey had a margin of error of 5.3 percentage points.
The Campa-Najjar campaign indicates that its poll shows a narrower race.
FAMILY BLAME GAME
The 29-year-old Democratic challenger is the son of a Mexican-American mother and a Palestinian father who immigrated from the Middle East. He insists on his Christian faith in the field and has repeatedly tried to distance himself from his Palestinian grandfather, who led the plot at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and was assassinated by Israeli commandos the following year.
He responded to Hunter's announcement by pointing out the problems of the Republican family: "He knows that I am not responsible for the actions of my family, just as his wife is not responsible for his."
Hunter, 41, and his wife pleaded not guilty on August 23 for using $ 250,000 in campaign funds to pay for their children's school fees, lavish trips including a trip to Italy and expensive restaurant meals hundreds of dollars. He said the charges were motivated by political considerations.
Hunter is not the only member of the Republican Congress to get re-elected while fighting criminal charges. US Representative Chris Collins is also campaigning in a normally Republican-dominated western New York district, pending an insider trading lawsuit he denied.
Hunter and Collins were both early supporters of Trump, who earlier this month criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for allowing federal prosecutors to charge Republican candidates in an election year.
The Campa-Najjar fundraiser surpassed Hunter's, according to data from the Federal Electoral Commission until June 2018. The Hunter campaign had reported contributions of $ 854,787, while Campa-Najjar had reported nearly $ 1.1 million
In an interview with Reuters before the announcement, Campa-Najjar expects to win Trump voters who "can not support someone who embodies the swamp in Washington."
(The story corrects paragraph three to show the first ad posted on Wednesday.)
(Written by Bill Tarrant, edited by Scott Malone and Tom Brown)
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