Lefty Dem tipped as next House-incumbent slayer has rap sheet with drunken ER fight, car crash

WASHINGTON — A lefty teacher’s campaign to knock off longtime Rep.Richard Neal in western Massachusetts is gaining national attention as left-wing insurgents take scalps across the country in primary contests — but police records obtained by The Post reveal he has a colorful rap sheet.Jeromie Whalen, a 39-year-old high school journalism teacher, was arrested at least twice in confrontations with authorities — accused of a drunk assault in a hospital emergency room and then nearly driving his pickup truck into a house at 4 a.m.

while also under the influence.“I’m not going to say that I haven’t made mistakes in my life, but I’ve learned from mistakes that I had in my younger years,” the candidate told The Post ahead of the Sept.1 primary election — saying the earlier incidents left him realizing it was “time to shape up.

It’s time to grow up.”While Whalen admitted “several … run-ins with the law” — blaming it on “newfound independence and alcohol” when he got to college — he raged at the embarrassing leak, while accusing Neal of being “s–t-scared” about losing the Sept.1 Democratic primary after 18 terms in office.“What you’ve been given is probably illegal,” Whalen told The Post.

“It’s been so long, [the records] have been sealed, and so you were given illegal documents.And that’s going to be something that’s really important moving forward.”Whalen’s admitted run-ins, however, “raise significant questions about Whalen’s conduct, judgment and temperament,” said a source who provided the records.In 2006, a college-aged Whalen was arrested for misdemeanor battery in Osceola County, Fla., for allegedly drunkenly assaulting a security guard after resisting nurses’ attempts to insert an IV.

A mug shot shows him grinning at the police station.The candidate told The Post there were “two sides” to the story, and that he was just “refusing services.”“They said, ‘If you go try to get by me ...