U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto speaks during a news conference hosted by the Nevada State Democratic Party in Las Vegas on June 15, 2016.
Published Friday, Aug. 19, 2016 | 11:44 a.m.
Updated Friday, Aug. 19, 2016 | 3:39 p.m.
In a new ad today, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto is firing back at the suggestion she was responsible for an increase in crime in Nevada during her tenure as state attorney general.
The spot, titled “Left Out,” pushes back on a recent ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee that blames Cortez Masto for an increase in murders, robberies, and rapes, which did go up during her last term in office.
Cortez Masto’s ad notes that crime went down during her entire time in office, a fact recently highlighted by Politifact.
The Politifact article also noted that attorneys general have little influence over state crime rates and that changes in raw crime statistics have more to do with local policing, judging the NRSC ad’s attacks “mostly false.”
Cortez Masto is running in a tight race against Republican Rep. Joe Heck to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. Recent poll numbers show the two neck-and-neck.
“Ads for Joe Heck are attacking my time as attorney general,” Cortez Masto says in the ad. “The thing they left out is the truth.”
She touts her endorsements from law enforcement organizations across the state and her record of “cracking down on meth, protecting seniors from scams and holding banks accountable for defrauding homeowners.”
Cortez Masto’s campaign also released two more ads this week, continuing to go after Heck on his votes to defund Planned Parenthood.
The ads, titled “Karen” and “Cookie,” feature breast cancer survivors Karen Wilkes of Boulder City and Cookie Bible of Lake Tahoe talking about the importance of cancer screenings offered by Planned Parenthood.
The ads build upon the argument made in an ad the campaign released last week, which paints Heck as an anti-woman candidate who is against abortion. (Heck’s stance does allow for certain exceptions for abortion, such as in cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is at risk.)
Heck’s campaign dismissed that ad as “putting politics and campaign contributions ahead of women’s health.”
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