The following press release is from the Dan Helmer for Delegate campaign; for the original story on this, which we broke first at Blue Virginia, click here.
DELEGATE DAN HELMER RAISES $100,000 IN 24 HOURS AFTER ANTISEMITIC CAMPAIGN FLYER IS DISCOVERED
Fairfax Station, VA — In the day after The Washington Post’s Editorial Board released an Op-Ed detailing a “classic and blatant” anti-Semitic campaign mailer released by the Harold Pyon for Delegate campaign, Delegate Dan Helmer raised over $100,000 from hundreds of supporters for his re-election.
The Washington Post’s coverage was joined by stories from the Times of Israel and CBS’s Washington D.C. affiliate WUSA9, which detailed the mailer’s doctoring the shape of Delegate Helmer’s nose, darkening of his skin, removal of the West Point insignia from his jacket, and choice to have him posed gazing over piles of golden coins.
Tactics that The Washington Post called “an affront to decency” that “fits a recent pattern among Virginia Republican candidates in this fall’s legislative elections”, and that WUSA9’s Bruce Leshan stated was “one of the oldest antisemitic tropes there is. Jewish guy. Big nose. Counting coins.”
Despite this widespread condemnation, including from the Anti Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, Harold Pyon refused invitations to be interviewed on the record, and released a statement in which he attacked The Washington Post for their coverage and denied that his actions were anti-Semitic.
In response to this record-breaking fundraising Delegate Dan Helmer released the following statement: “I have been stunned by the outpouring of support we have received in the days since The Washington Post’s Op-Ed. It sends a clear message that the people of Virginia will not stand for antisemitism in our politics. That Virginians expect candidates to run for office on their ideas and record, not by stoking division using vile stereotypes.”
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