‘I haven’t seen her at all,’ one Latino voter said of Nevada’s embattled Dem senator
Washington, D.C. – No one has ever accused Catherine Cortez Masto of being much of an overly engaged Senator. But now, just a few weeks out from Election Day, Cortez Masto seems like she is still on cruise control even though she is in the fight of her political life.
Just this past Friday, Cortez Masto was to join fellow Latinas Las Vegas City Councilwoman Olivia Diaz, state assemblywoman and Nevada AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Susie Martinez (D.), and Lieutenant Governor Lisa Cano Burkhead (D.) to receive Hispanic Community Leadership Appreciation Awards. Cortez Masto was a no-show.
A Top Hispanic Media Group Was Set To Honor Catherine Cortez Masto With a Coveted Award. She Didn’t Even Show Up.
By Collin Anderson
LAS VEGAS—Around 8:30 p.m. Friday night, three of Nevada’s top Latina Democrats posed arm-in-arm at the Factory of Dreams banquet hall in Las Vegas, with the women eager to show off their newly won Hispanic Community Leadership Appreciation Awards. But one honoree was missing from the photo op—Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D.), who snubbed the event.
Cortez Masto often invokes her status as “the first Latina ever elected to the U.S. Senate” in her tight reelection bid against Republican Adam Laxalt, which could determine who controls the Senate next year. That title in part prompted El Concilio Hispano, a Hispanic media group that runs a top Latino talk radio program in Nevada, to honor the Democrat at its 2022 Hispanic Heritage Month Leadership Awards. The event’s other three guests of honor—Las Vegas city councilwoman Olivia Diaz, state assemblywoman and Nevada AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Susie Martinez (D.), and Lieutenant Governor Lisa Cano Burkhead (D.), who is also on the ballot this November—accepted their awards in person. Cortez Masto sent a surrogate.
Cortez Masto’s decision to ditch the event, which included an array of Hispanic community leaders, is a curious one with Election Day just weeks away. Hispanic voters may very well decide Cortez Masto’s political fate—roughly 20 percent of Nevada midterm voters are expected to be Latino, according to a National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials report. Years ago, that stat would have been music to Cortez Masto’s ears. The Democrat in 2016 enjoyed 61 percent of the Latino vote, exit polls show. Six years later, however, Cortez Masto’s Latino support appears to have diminished considerably as many working-class Nevadans sour on President Joe Biden’s economy. An October poll from USA Today and Suffolk University found that just 49 percent of Hispanic voters back Cortez Masto.
Cortez Masto’s campaign did not return multiple requests for comment prior to the Friday El Concilio Hispano event. Four days after the ceremony, campaign communications director Josh Marcus-Blank told the Free Beacon Cortez Masto missed the event as she was “scheduled to be in Reno.” Marcus-Blank ignored questions asking if the senator’s Reno trip was scheduled before she received El Concilio Hispano’s invitation.
Both in Washington and Nevada, Cortez Masto has long kept a low profile, an approach that’s hardly changed as the Democrat fights for her political life in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate contests. On the eve of former president Donald Trump’s Oct. 9 visit to northern Nevada, for example, Cortez Masto’s counter-programming consisted of a private speech to Culinary Workers Union canvassers alongside Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), whose trip to Nevada was not publicized. When the Washington Free Beacon visited Cortez Masto’s Las Vegas office days later, a staffer said she “unfortunately” had “no information about the senator’s schedule at this time.” A visit to the Nevada State Democratic Party office prompted a similar result: A press aide told the Free Beacon he was “not aware” of any upcoming public campaign events. The Free Beacon is not the first media outlet to get the runaround from Cortez Masto—Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston in September accused the Democrat of “refusing to let [his] reporters ask her about her record.”
Cortez Masto’s low-key campaign style does help the incumbent avoid “potential missteps,” Ralston noted last month. But it also makes it difficult for the Democrat to energize Nevada voters, particularly as they face one of the worst inflation rates in the nation. “I haven’t seen her at all,” Victor Roque, a Las Vegas realtor who immigrated from Cuba, told the Free Beacon. “The Democrats are hiding because they don’t seem to like answering questions. And that’s a problem.”
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