The list just keeps getting longer:
A Virginia group that bills itself as a "nonprofit, nonpartisan" watchdog group has illegally solicited millions while pushing Republican-aligned messaging, according to a complaint filed by a watchdog organization on Thursday.
Americans for Public Trust, which bills itself as an ethics watchdog, is illegally fundraising in Virginia, according to a complaint filed by the Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group, to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the commonwealth's attorney for the city of Alexandria, where APT is based.
"For a group that claims to be a watchdog, you'd think that APT would have its own house in order, but that appears not to be the case," Michelle Kuppersmith, the executive director of Campaign for Accountability, said in a statement to Salon. "If Virginia officials confirm that APT has in fact been soliciting dark money in the state illegally, they should—as APT's website puts it—'ensure that those who disregard the rule of law are held responsible.'"
APT denied any wrongdoing in response to the complaint.
"Americans for Public Trust is fully compliant with state charitable laws," Caitlin Sutherland, the group's executive director, said in an email to Salon.
APT, which describes itself as an "independent" organization that is "dedicated to restoring trust in government," focuses largely on targeting Democrats with election ethics complaints.
The group was founded in 2020 by Sutherland, the former research director for the National Republican Congressional Committee who previously worked at the Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund. Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt served as the group's outside counsel and was branded the "Nevada version of Rudy Giuliani" after leading former President Donald Trump's failed efforts to overturn his election loss (he is already threatening to file lawsuits challenging 2022 votes that haven't been cast). Annie Talley, the group's president, was a "trusted aide" to Trump and shepherded Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's nomination as deputy White House counsel.
Emphasis Mine.
Also, here’s the latest news today out of Nevada:
The Republican mayor of a small town in rural Nevada has endorsed incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto over her GOP opponent Adam Laxalt in one of the country's premier Senate contests this year.
“I am a Republican, but Catherine has earned our support in rural Nevada by blocking new taxes on our mining industry and supporting funding for local infrastructure needs," Ely Mayor Nathan Robertson said Tuesday. "I know she will continue working hard in the Senate to champion issues important to all rural Nevadans.”
Ely, a remote mountain town of about 4,000 people, is the largest city and county seat of White Pine County. Located about 320 miles east of Reno and roughly 250 miles north of Las Vegas, Ely's mining boom came in 1906 after the discovery of copper.
"This made Ely a mining town," according to the city's website, "suffering through the boom-and-bust cycles common in the West."
The new endorsement comes one week after Laxalt's primary election victory over Army veteran Sam Brown, who had waged a well-funded grassroots primary challenge.
This could be very helpful for Cortez Masto in winning over crossover voters:
Democratic voters just slightly outnumber Republicans in Nevada, according to the latest numbers from the secretary of state’s office. The state also has more than 627,000 nonpartisan voters who could swing the outcome either way.
Cortez Masto, who is the first Latina to serve in the Senate, won six years ago as the hand-picked successor to longtime Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid. She had the backing of Reid’s formidable political machine.
Today, she’s seen as a vulnerable incumbent whose loss in an off-year election could tip the Senate to Republican control.
It used to be that candidates would shift to the center as part of their post-primary strategy, said Christina Ladam, an assistant political science professor at the University of Nevada-Reno.
“Really, since 2016, we’ve seen candidates kind of stick with some more extreme views in the general election,” she said, especially conservative candidates.
Whether to mobilize the party base or reach out to swing voters is a question that all campaigns have to ask as they shift to the primary, said Dan Lee, a political science professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
And it’s going to be all about turnout and the late great U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D. NV) helped build the Democratic Machine in Nevada:
The election will largely hinge on who shows up to the polls. Mr. Reid’s political apparatus had been crucial to mobilizing multiracial coalitions of working-class and Latino voters. But sharp drops in Democratic participation in Nevada midterm elections have most recently given Republicans an advantage. The state’s transient population also makes it difficult for political candidates and elected officials to build name recognition.
“The challenge for everyone on the ticket in Nevada is turnout,” said Representative Dina Titus, a Democrat who is facing her own tough bid for re-election this year for her Las Vegas seat.
Mr. Laxalt has largely centered on turning out his base by stirring voter outrage over undocumented immigrants, the economy and pandemic school closures and restrictions. He has already begun to attack Ms. Cortez Masto as a vulnerable incumbent in line with Biden administration policies.
The grandson of a former Nevada senator and son of a former New Mexico senator, Mr. Laxalt served as co-chairman of the 2020 Trump campaign in Nevada, and led Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state. He was endorsed by both Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, two of the most popular figures in the Republican Party.
In a memo released the day after the Tuesday primary, Scott Fairchild, Ms. Cortez Masto’s campaign manager, painted Mr. Laxalt as a corrupt politician and “an anti-abortion extremist” focused on promoting Mr. Trump’s “big lie.” Her supporters see him as a flawed candidate, pointing to his failed bid for governor in 2018 and his attempt to block a federal investigation as attorney general into some of his wealthiest donors, including the Koch brothers.
Democracy and Health are on the ballot and we need to get ready to keep Nevada Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D. NV) and her fellow Nevada Democrats campaigns: