Four Nassau County Democratic candidates stood at party headquarters in Garden City this week to call out Republican campaign mailers they say are built on falsehoods, including one that stamped the word “insane” over an image of Assembly candidate Dean Tarulli next to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The mailers arrive less than three weeks before Election Day, and the candidates say the goal is simple: divide voters rather than inform them.
According to ABC7 Eyewitness News, one of the most inflammatory lines in the mailers, a 2019 quote claiming “America deserved 9/11,” never came from any of the pictured Nassau Democrats at all. As Newsday reports, the quote actually originated with far-left online streamer Hasan Piker, who later called the remark inappropriate, while Mamdani himself called it reprehensible. Tarulli, who is running for the open Assembly District 15 seat against Republican Paolo Pironi, said the words “never came from him” and that the mailer was designed to target hate toward him by portraying him as un-American and indifferent to New York.
A Police Veteran Accused of Funding Antisemitism
Sean McCarthy, a retired 33-year veteran of the Nassau County Police Department and the current Port Washington Police District commissioner, was also singled out. One mailer accused McCarthy of funding an anti-American, antisemitic agenda, a claim he says directly conflicts with his career spent opposing antisemitism, Islamophobia and discrimination. McCarthy is challenging incumbent Republican Supervisor Jennifer DeSena in North Hempstead this November.
Joe Scianablo, a Marine Corps combat veteran, retired NYPD officer and former Queens prosecutor running for Hempstead Town Supervisor against Republican incumbent John Ferretti, put it bluntly: “the lies have to stop.” Kim Keiserman, a commissioner on the North Hempstead Housing Authority running for the open 16th State Assembly District seat against Republican David Hassid, said she received a similar mailer on Yom Kippur containing accusations she described as untrue. Keiserman said the mailers were intended to divide the community, create anger and distract voters from Long Island issues.
Republicans Defend the Mailers, Democrats Fire Back
The New York State Republican Party has defended the campaign mailers, with a party spokesman saying Democrats who lack “the spine to oppose radicals” should not hold political power, per the same ABC7 account. Jay Jacobs, who serves concurrently as Chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee and Chair of the Nassau County Democratic Committee, rejected that defense, saying the mailers relied on guilt by association despite no actual connection between the candidates and the figures used against them.
Nassau County Democrats have sent the Republican Party a cease-and-desist letter over the mailers, though such letters have been used by both sides in past campaigns, the station notes. Legal experts point to a steep hurdle for any formal defamation claim: under the First Amendment standard set by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, political candidates alleging defamation over campaign ads must prove actual malice, meaning the other side knew the claims were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, according to the U.S. Constitution Annotated. That high bar means the dispute will likely be settled by voters rather than courts.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Nassau County
This is not the first mailer fight to roil Nassau politics this year. In August, Hoodline reported on mailers blaming a Hempstead tax hike on a Democratic official who had no authority over the assessment, a dispute that likewise drew bipartisan accusations of misleading campaigning. Hoodline has also chronicled broader polarization in county politics, including the uproar earlier this year over immigration remarks from County Executive Bruce Blakeman that critics linked to replacement rhetoric.
The current mailer fight is also unfolding under new electoral rules. The New York State Court of Appeals upheld the state's Even-Year Election Law in October 2025, moving municipal elections to even-numbered years, according to Albany Law School. That change is why Nassau's town supervisor races, including the McCarthy-DeSena and Scianablo-Ferretti contests, now share a ballot with state Assembly races like Tarulli's and Keiserman's.
Despite the noise, some voters told ABC7 they largely tune out campaign mailers altogether, saying they would rather spend the final weeks before Election Day educating themselves on the candidates and the issues directly.
