Democratic candidate for New York’s 19th Congressional District Antonio Delgado denounced attack ads from outside groups criticizing his rap career during a debate with Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.) Friday.
“I think the ads are deeply unfortunate, and they speak to a climate right now that is divisive and ugly, and we can do better,” he said. “I think what we’ve seen as far as the trends are going in this country is away from cooperation and communicating with each other with decency and respect.”
{mosads}“We have to get beyond this if we really want to solve complicated problems, if we really want to deal with the issues…we’ve got to get to a point where we’re no longer at each other’s throats just spewing misleading facts and get to the substance of what’s really going wrong with our country right now,” he added.
Faso, who is trying to win a second term in Congress, distanced himself from the ads that critics have slammed as racist.
“I would just simply point out that those are not my ads, those ads are provocative, no doubt, those ads, however, are provocative and Mr. Delgado’s words are provocative,” he said.
“I do regret the notion that somehow these ads were mine, because they’re not, and I’ll tell you this, I reject the support of anyone who would vote for me because of Mr. Delgado’s race,” Faso added.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has released two ads highlighting Delgado’s rap career that drew widespread ire.
One ad released in September titled “NY-19: ‘Can’t Afford Delgado,’” labels him a “big city rapper.”
“Just like Governor Cuomo and Nancy Pelosi, big city rapper Antonio Delgado supports their radical government takeover of health care,” the narrator in the ad says.
The NRCC released another ad earlier in September that spliced together some of the scenes from a music video by Delgado in which he uses the n-word, profanity, references to sexual acts and says “God bless Iraq,” with images of the candidate giving a standard campaign speech in more formal attire.
“It’s disappointing that John Faso and his supporters are still focused on distractions by spreading fear, hatred, and division. We continue to call on Faso to condemn these divisive and deceptive ads,” Delgado said in a statement at the time.
New York’s 19th Congressional District is home to one of the nation’s tightest House races and a seat Democrats are keen on flipping in November, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee adding it to their “red to blue” program. The district voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, but voted for President Trump in 2016. The Cook Political Report rates the seat as a “toss up.”