'I haven't seen her at all,' one Latino voter said of Nevada�s embattled
Dem senator

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."

Laxalt and the Republican National Committee have responded by
aggressively courting Latino voters, an outreach effort they feel will
deliver them the Senate seat come November. Laxalt on Thursday held a
Hispanic Heritage Month event at the committee�s Las Vegas Hispanic
Community Center, which saw the Republican hammer Biden and Cortez Masto
on the race's top issues: inflation and the economy. Laxalt specifically
highlighted his opponent's decision to vote for trillions of dollars in
spending under Biden, saying Cortez Masto "pretends she's independent �
but she never stood against these policies."

"We have a chance in this race to save the American dream," Laxalt said.
"If we get Senator Masto out of her office, the government will stop
spending, they will stop increasing inflation, and they will stop raising
gas prices."

Cortez Masto has attempted to weather the storm largely by focusing on
abortion. The Democrat and her campaign allies have spent more than $6
million on abortion-related ads alone, and Cortez Masto's fundraising
messages often argue that a Laxalt win would lead to a nationwide abortion
ban. But some prominent liberals are expressing concern that the issue
won't be enough to deliver them a victory in Nevada. "A lot of these
consultants think if all we do is run abortion spots that will win for us.
I don't think so," veteran strategist James Carville told the Associated
Press last week. "It's a good issue. But if you just sit there and they're
pummeling you on crime and pummeling you on the cost of living, you've got
to be more aggressive than just yelling abortion every other word."

Carville's assessment is especially convincing given Nevada's unique
economic turmoil over the last two years. Democratic governor Steve
Sisolak ordered a statewide shutdown of all "nonessential
business"�including casinos, hotels, restaurants, and bars�in March 2020,
decimating Las Vegas's vast tourism and service industries. By the time
the city's casinos and restaurants reopened at full capacity in the summer
of 2021, Nevada business owners began battling inflation and supply chain
issues under Biden. One bar manager told the Free Beacon he was forced to
raise prices "even before inflation ramped up" as he navigated a slump in
sales due to the shutdown.

Now, inflation is costing the average Nevada family nearly $10,000 a year.
The average price for a gallon of gas, for example, is the fourth-highest
in the nation at $5.23. And not all service industry jobs have returned.
Roughly 12,000 Culinary Workers Union members have yet to get their pre-
pandemic jobs back, according to the Washington Post.

"Since Joe Biden has taken office, I've been struggling. It's really been
difficult, to the point that I might just have to get another job, just to
make ends meet," Las Vegas resident Tomas Ramos, a retired Army veteran,
told the Free Beacon. "With gas, I don't really go anywhere. Groceries as
well. Everything has gotten really expensive the last two years."

Cortez Masto's army of Culinary Workers Union volunteers, long a staple of
the late Harry Reid's Nevada political machine, are becoming quite
familiar with inflation-focused voters like Ramos. Union canvassers have
been shouted down in Las Vegas�s working-class neighborhoods, according to
the New York Times, with one voter exclaiming, "You think I am going to
vote for those Democrats after all they've done to ruin the economy?"

In the race's final weeks, the Laxalt campaign will no doubt repeat that
sentiment as often as possible�especially to Latinos. "The message is
economy, inflation," Laxalt senior Latino engagement adviser Jesus Marquez
said. "And we're not getting off the message." The campaign believes it
will prevail in November if it receives 40 percent of the Latino vote, a
benchmark both Marquez and Republican National Committee Hispanic
communications director Jaime Florez expect to clear.

"If Democrats believe that Hispanics are going to stop worrying about
inflation because of the abortion issue," Florez said Thursday, "the
election results will show them the colossal size of their mistake."

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/a-top-hispanic-media-group-was-set-to-
honor-catherine-cortez-masto-with-a-coveted-award-she-didnt-even-show-up/