DURHAM — A candidate for judge says he has nothing to do with a misleading campaign flier that is circulating in Durham.

The flier claims that “The Durham Committee for Black People” endorses President Barack Obama and Superior Court Judge candidate Jim Dornfried.

The similarly named but long-established Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People has endorsed Dornfried’s opponent, incumbent Judge Orlando Hudson.

“I’ve heard about this flier,” Dornfried said Friday. “No one in my campaign is involved in that.”

The flier carries the statement “The DURHAM COMMITTEE for BLACK PEOPLE NOW RESPECTFULLY ENDORSES” above photos of Dornfried and Obama. It does not mention any other candidates or contests.

Darius Little, a former Durham City Council candidate, said he was handed one of the fliers outside the South Regional Library early voting site on Thursday by “a brunette, Anglo-American female.”

Little said Dornfried, an assistant district attorney, was putting up campaign signs nearby when he was given the flier, but Dornfried said he did not know who was responsible for it.

“I was shocked” to learn of the flier, Dornfried said. “I don’t know who this group is or if it even exists.”

There is no Durham Committee for Black People on the Durham County Board of Elections list of registered political action committees, and both Dornfried and Philip Cousin, chairman of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, said they had never heard of such a group, either.

“I certainly disavow it,” Cousin said of the flier, and added that he has “no reason to believe it was in any way endorsed by Dornfried.

“I have to assume the best of anyone until proven otherwise,” he said.

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