State Senate hopeful David Yassky fibbed to voters about getting endorsements in his Democratic Primary race against incumbent state Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) — before getting called out by The Post Monday.
The former City Council member from Brooklyn Heights had touted fake endorsements from a local political club and a prominent gun control group while running ahead of the Aug. 23 election.
“It’s intentionally deceptive,” Gounardes spokeswoman Amanda Luz Henning Santiago alleged in a statement.
The Yassky campaign removed references on his campaign website and Twitter account Monday to a claimed endorsement by IND Brooklyn, a political group backing Gounardes to represent a newly-created 26th senate district, that includes waterfront neighborhoods from DUMBO to Bay Ridge.
Yassky, who last served in the council in 2009 and then served as Taxi & Limousine Commissioner, will also stop claiming a formal endorsement by anti-gun group Moms Demand Action on mailers sent to voters, according to spokesman George Artz.
“Obviously we didn’t mean to put that out,” Artz said of the two misleading claims.
State Senate candidate David Yassky claimed fake endorsements in his Democratic primary campaign against incumbent state Sen. Andrew Gounardes. Stefan JeremiahIND Brooklyn previously endorsed Yassky before the state’s highest court declared legislative lines approved by Albany Democrats as unconstitutional, which led to a new map created by a court-appointed special master.
“The campaign’s site and social media have been updated to reflect the new lines. The IND endorsement, which clearly relates to the old map, has been removed,” Artz said in an email.
Yassky had prominently displayed the Aug. 23 election date above the story related to the political club endorsement on his website in recent weeks while also keeping a Tweet promoting it pinned to the top of a Twitter account he regularly uses.
“After the lines were redrawn, IND supported Senator Gounardes for reelection, not David Yassky. And Mom’s Demand Action gave both candidates the same grade, with explicit instructions that it was not an endorsement,” Gounardes spokeswoman Amanda Luz Henning Santiago, who previously worked with this reporter at City & State NY magazine, added.
But Artz suggested Gounardes has stretched the truth himself by distributing campaign literature claiming he is running for “reelection” to represent areas of Brooklyn like DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights that are not part of his current Southern Brooklyn-based district.
Moms Demand Action have dubbed both Yassky and Gounardes as “gun sense candidate[s]” – a distinction meant to show voters their gun control stances are aligned with the group’s efforts to restrict firearms in the wake of mass shootings.
“The Moms Demand Action Gun Sense Candidate distinction is not an endorsement from Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund or its volunteer network, and should not be represented as such. Instead, it is a signal to our supporters, volunteers, and voters across the country that a candidate will govern with gun safety in mind, if elected,” reads the website of the advocacy group.
