A local Nevada television station will no longer run an attack ad targeting Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt following the threat of a lawsuit from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).
The Democrat-affiliated Senate Majority PAC (SMP) paid for the ad, titled “Standing in the Way,” to run on multiple Nevada TV stations, including Reno’s CBS affiliate, KTVN 2 News. It claims that Laxalt “oppos[es] relief for Nevada’s economy, says ‘no’ to lower prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare, [and] opposes the expanded child tax credit.”
Attorneys for the NRSC called those claims “misleading and false” in a letter requesting that KTVN 2 News no longer run the ad. The request was first reported on by Politico.
In the letter, the attorneys note that the articles cited in the ad do not include Laxalt’s position on the issues mentioned, and in one case, does not even mentioned Laxalt’s name.
Interesting item in @playbookdc this morning about the NRSC getting a Reno TV station to stop running a Senate Democratic PAC ad over allegations of inaccuracy. pic.twitter.com/3ql6rTPHae
— Humberto Sanchez (@hsanchez128) October 27, 2021
“SMP’s citations do not support what the Advertisement claims. Indeed, Laxalt’s positions on these issues are not even mentioned. As such, your station is now on notice of airing a false and defamatory advertisement, and we demand that you remove it from your airwaves immediately,” they conclude.
Attorneys representing SMP responded that Laxalt could “express support for pieces of President Biden’s proposal,” but instead “he has opposed them as a whole.”
KTVN 2 News sided with the NRSC, telling the two sides that the station “will be pulling the ad as of tomorrow unless new documentation or information comes in that changes the course of our decision,” according to Politico.
The NRSC sent similar requests to other stations that are running the ad, in hopes that they will also stop doing so, a source with knowledge of the letters told the Daily Caller.
Recent polling has found Laxalt running within five points of first-term Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who is considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the Senate. Laxalt served as state Attorney General from 2015-2019, and unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018. (RELATED: Former State Attorney General Adam Laxalt Launches Senate Bid In Nevada)
“We’re glad that at least one station has made the decision to remove the false ad from Chuck Schumer’s PAC. We will continue to fight back against the Democrats’ lies anywhere and everywhere,” NRSC Deputy Communications Director Lizzie Litzow told the Daily Caller.
“Chuck Schumer is so desperate to save Catherine Cortez Masto that he’s attacking me for her own failures,” Laxalt said in a statement. “This shows that she and Schumer will say anything to win this race, no matter if it aligns with the facts or not and proves to Nevadans that they can’t trust their words.”