Republican state Sen. Jack Martins and Democrat challenger Kim Keiserman are taking their state Senate battle to the post as they launch a mailer campaign. But their tactics differ.
Most of the mailers arriving in mailboxes from both candidates concern Keiserman and her issues with the Martins pieces, which paint a negative and often harsh picture of her that she claims is inaccurate.
“Jack Martins is resorting to ugly, desperate tactics, bombarding voters with outrageous lies and manipulated imagery to hide his own failures,” Keiserman said in a statement.
Efforts to solicit comment from Martins’ campaign were unavailing.
The New York Republican State Committee pays for the mailers supporting Martins, and the New York State Democratic Senate Campaign Committee pays for those supporting Keiserman.
The two are vying for the state Senate’s District 7, which includes much of the North Shore and the Town of Oyster Bay as far east as Woodbury, is represented by Martins, who flipped the district red in 2022.
While Martins’ mailers have one side with his face and his stance, the other side features Keiserman with claims attacking her candidacy.
These attacks include alleging her campaign is funded by the communist party, pushing for higher taxes, and supporting Nassau County as a sanctuary city and high-density development on Long Island.
According to the New York State Board of Elections, Linda Sun, an ex-Gov. Kathy Hochul aide charged with being an agent of the Chinese Communist Party, did contribute $150 to Keiserman’s campaign in January and another $100 in April.
Both donations were before the FBI raid of her Manhasset home in May and subsequent arrest in July. Keiserman’s campaign said the contributions were returned the day it was learned she was under investigation by the FBI.
Martins’s mailers have said Keiserman supports higher taxes and cites her support of the Port Washington School District’s 2024-2025 budget, which pierced the tax cap. More than 70% of voters approved the tax increase, but Keiserman’s campaign has advocated for lower taxes.
Martins’ mailers also say Keiserman supports sanctuary cities. They cite her comments in City & State supporting Hochul’s 2024-2025 budget, which provided funding for migrants.
Keiserman states in the City & State story that her expressed support for the budget was solely regarding the budget’s public safety measures.
“I’ve been vocal in my opposition to defunding the police, Governor Hochul’s misguided housing plan, and harmful tax hikes,” Keiserman said. “And his bizarre claim about my funding? It’s laughably false. We’re focused on the real issues that matter to voters while Martins hides behind smear campaigns. Let’s stick to the facts—not Jack Martins’ fiction.”
Some Democratic mailers have attacked Martins on a smaller scale than the Republicans.
One mailer alleges that Martins does not support abortion rights.
The mailer cites Martins voting against protecting abortion rights in 2013 and 2014 and voting against protecting doctors who provide for patients coming from states barring abortions, which he did during the vote on May 30, 2023.
In 2013, Martins wrote in a statement that he did not support the abortion bill because it had been “hijacked” by special interest groups and expanded the bill to include late-term abortions.
He said while he respects different opinions on the issue, late-term abortions were something he could not support.
That bill was then deferred to the Health Committee in 2014, which struck it down in a 9-8 vote. Martins served on that committee and voted against the bill.
Other allegations made against Martins are that he does not support public safety through his vote against gun safety reforms.
Martins voted against a bill in 2023 that would require police officers to take temporary custody of firearms after responding to reported family violence.
He was one of 19 who voted against it in a floor vote, but it was ultimately passed and passed twice again in the Rules and Codes Committees. It has not yet left the state Senate and was committed to the Rules Committee in June.
