Time for an update. Catherine Cortez Masto is off to a good start in her quest to replace Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate, but this is going to be rough, and she can use all the help she can get. Both she and her opponent, NV U.S. Congressman Joe Heck have money in the bank, but nowhere near enough for this race, and nowhere near what will certainly pour in between now and November 8th. To quote reporting in the renogazettejournal.com;
Cortez Masto outraised Heck with more than $2 million, leaving her with more than $2.5 million cash on hand. The campaign said the average contribution was $60. She ended 2015 with just more than $1.99 million.
Heck raised more than $1.66 million, bringing his total to $3.8 million in the bank. He ended 2015 with more than $2.86 million.
So far, as far as I can tell, Cortez Masto is controlling the airways, although not bombarding them yet. I live in Vegas, and the t.v. is on in the background all day while I’m doing other stuff, like these diaries. The Cortez Masto ads are all positive, re-introducing her to the state, highlighting her personal and family story and touting her accomplishments as Nevada’s Attorney General. Joe Heck had an ad on a couple of months ago touting his military service and his US House record, but he seems to have gone dark lately. But it’s getting rougher. The Koch brothers are sticking their slimy tentacles into the race, and not on the side of the angels. According to usatoday.com;
WASHINGTON – A conservative political action committee funded in part by the Koch brothers is spending more than $1 million to air television ads attacking Nevada Democratic Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto.
Freedom Partners Action Fund, based in Arlington, Va., announced the two ads on Tuesday. One says that when Cortez Masto was attorney general, she hired a Washington law firm to help residents deal with the housing crisis, then reaped thousands in campaign donations from the firm’s attorneys.
The second ad criticizes her travel while in office. Both ads label her a “special interest politician.”
That report was in mid May, and as we speak I have yet to see either one of those ads, so I don’t know what markets in NV they were targeting, but they may have decided that the heavily Democratic stronghold of Vegas was not going to be fertile ground for them.
The Democrats are not taking this lying down. The Democratic Super PAC Senatemajority.com has answered, and powerfully, with an ad that I see at least once every two hours or so down here. I was unable to find a youtube version to post but you can view it on their website HERE. Here is the basic text of the voice over on the ad;,
In total, Heck has collected more than $300,000 in campaign contributions from Wall Street and big banks, has sponsored $44 million in tax breaks for banks, and also advocated for a risky Social Security privatization scheme to gamble retirement savings on the stock market. Banks could stand to make billions in fees via privatization, even if the market were to tank and Americans lost their retirement savings.
To me this is a very effective ad. It is blunt, to the point, and the math is simple to understand. Especially effective is the picture of a senior citizen looking concernedly at a letter in her mail while the voice overlay talks about Heck wanting our Social Security savings turned over to the cash station cowboys.
Make no mistake, this is going to be a tough race. One of the really frustrating things about being a political junkie in NV is the almost total lack of polling. The only one I could find was almost a year to the day old, and had Cortez Masto leading Heck by 1 point, 42-41. I’m sure we’ll see more as election day gets closer, but traditionally it’s very sporadic out here and not always particularly accurate.
Catherine Cortez Masto has a strong progressive agenda. She wants to overturn Citizens United, raise the minimum wage to $15 and hour (polling at 63-35 FOR in NV right now), comprehensive immigration reform and protecting Social Security and Medicare. In other words, a progressive Grand Slam.
We should be able to hold this seat. outgoing Senator Harry Reid has heartily endorsed her, and she’ll have his machine at her disposal for her effort. If Hillary Clinton does well here, which is quite possible considering the sizeable Mormon population in NV and their utter disdain for Trump, her coattails could help boost Cortez Masto over the top. But the Koch’s have already come to the aid of Heck once, and he is as the ads have shown covered in Wall Street pocket lint, so he should not have any fundraising difficulties. This is going to take all of our effort.
We need to get this done. Polling in several swing states shows candidates like Feingold in WI, Duckworth in IL and Strickland in OH all either leading or within the margin of error. We can’t afford to lose a seat we already hold if we’re going to take back the Senate.
So, let’s show Catherine Cortez Masto some Kossack love. You can find her website HERE. If you’d like to sign up to help the campaign out, you can do it HERE. And if you’d like to donate, you can do that HERE.
Thanks as always for reading, and Go BLUE!!!