Daily News: Jewish $$$$ Nationwide Helped Fund Jeffries Win

Charles Barron was a fund-raising machine — for the opponent who cleaned his clock in the Democratic primary.

In slightly less than a month leading up to the June 26 showdown, Hakeem Jeffries, a state Assemblyman unknown on the national stage, raked in $470,000 — and just under half of it, 47%, came from out-of-state donors who wanted to block Barron from ascending to Capitol Hill, a Daily News analysis of fund-raising totals revealed.

The City Councilman is a fiery former Black Panther with a history of making anti-semitic rants. Jewish donors came out of the woodwork — with some pitching in from as far away as California — out of fear Barron would take his anti-Israel invective to Congress.

When Jeffries’ June haul was broken down further, the percentage of donors from outside of the city was 60% — with Stanley Wasserman of Westchester County summing up the sentiment of the no-way-Barron bloc.

“I’ve known about his opponent, Charles Barron, for many, many years. Nasty, divisive — I believe he’s anti-Semitic. We don’t need a guy like that in Congress,” said Wasserman, who owns a real estate company and moved out of the city 20 years ago. He donated $1,800 to Jeffries in June.

“I looked into it, and I like Jeffries, a strong candidate, about unity, not divisiveness, and thought he’d be good for Congress.”

An overwhelming majority of voters in the 8th Congressional District apparently agreed — Jeffries’ margin of victory topped 50% of the vote.

The new Democratic golden boy’s June fund-raising streak reached a fever pitch during a 10-day stretch that represented 70% of the $470,000 June flood. The check deluge began with a June 11 press conference during which Jewish community leaders gathered to denounce Barron, and poured over by June 21, when Barron got a toxic endorsement from former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.

Jeffries’ camp acknowledged the role out-of-state Jewish donors played, but noted that his support within the district was close to all-inclusive.

“Should the Jewish community take a bow? Yes, because they made the conversation national,” said Jeffries’ campaign spokeswoman Lupe Todd. “But the black community should also take a bow; Jews, Baptists, black, white, everyone should take a bow because Hakeem Jeffries won in every corner of the district — he even won Barron’s own city council district.”

That did not go unnoticed by national Democratic party leaders. They saw how Jeffries was a fund-raising rainmaker early on, insiders told The News. His war chest was overflowing with $768,000 even before the June tear, a formidable take that in part prompted the district’s 15-term incumbent, Rep. Edolphus Towns, to retire rather than end his career on the mat, knocked out in the Democratic primary.

Over the course of the primary campaign, 56% of Jeffries’ total contributions were sums of $100 or less, according to the campaign. That range of big and small donors convinced the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to tap Jeffries for a team of fund-raising aces who will parachute into key races across the country in the lead-up to the fall elections, as the party tries to retake the House.

By Alison Gendar / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS