Big news out of Nevada today:
Nevada’s largest union group is backing Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto in her bid for the U.S. Senate.
Nevada’s American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or the AFL-CIO, is endorsing the state's former attorney general Cortez Masto’s run for outgoing Senator Harry Reid’s seat.
Danny Thompson is with the labor group, which represents about 120 unions with more than 200,000 members. Thompson says those members come from professions including " the culinary workers on the Las Vegas strip, firefighters, police officers, building tradesmen, electricians, brick layers, city, county state workers, nurses and hospital personnel, and others."
Thompson says the group is supporting Cortez Masto because of her support for raising the minimum wage, ensuring equal pay, and her stance of global trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.
It’s not that surprising but Cortez Masto is going to need all the help she can get because the Koch Brothers are spending big to defeat her:
A Koch brothers-backed group announced today it is shelling out $1 million for television and digital ads targeting Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto.
Two ads highlight a contract Cortez Masto, who served as Nevada attorney general from 2007 to 2015, signed with the Washington class-action law firm Cohen Milstein in 2009 to litigate fraudulent mortgage lending practices on behalf of the state during the foreclosure crisis.
Cohen Milstein worked on contingency for the state, meaning it would only get paid in the event of a successful suit or settlement — in this case 15 percent of the award. The firm successfully negotiated a $38 million settlement with Bank of America for Nevada, generating a $5.6 million award for the firm.
One of the ads characterizes the deal with Cohen Milstein as a “sweetheart contract worth millions” and calls Cortez Masto a “special-interest politician,” pointing to a couple thousand dollars in campaign contributions she received in 2010 from six partners at the law firm.
The ads are paid for by the conservative-learning super PAC Freedom Partners Action Fund, part of the network of organizations affiliated with conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.
This isn’t the first Koch-backed group to spend money on this Senate race this year. In March, the veterans-focused group Concerned Veterans for America spent $700,000 lauding Republican Rep. Joe Heck for his service to veterans in Congress.
But the Koch Brothers attacks might be a waste of money because the number of registered Democrats in the state had a big uptick in registration:
I have said and written many times that registration is not destiny. But those numbers mean something -- and 2016 is starting to look like 2012 and 2008 in Nevada, presidential years in which the Democrats did very well.
The latest numbers show the Democrats padded their statewide lead by about 5,000 voters in April, out-registering Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. This came despite the herculean efforts of the conservative registration outfit, Engage NV, which is trying to make up for the biennial ineptitude of the state GOP and a surging Democratic Party eager to atone for the 2014 wipeout.
The numbers tell an ominous story for the GOP:
►Democrats now have a 64,635-voter lead over the GOP, or more than 5 percent (40-35). Democrats have added 47,606 voters this year; Republicans have added 30,583. Thus, the Democrats have increased their lead by about 17,000 voters. So the Democrats, mostly because of same-day registration for the Feb. 20 presidential caucus, have made up for recent losses because of voter roll attrition. These gains have been felt in congressional districts and legislative districts, too, widening Democratic leads or cutting into GOP edges. (See below.) For instance, in Clark County, the Democrats now have a nearly 113,000-voter edge -- that's a 13 percentage point edge.
It all comes down to voter turnout. We get out the base and we will hold onto this seat. Click here to donate and get involved with Cortez Masto’s campaign.