Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) has refused to campaign with President Joe Biden for reelection against Republican challenger Adam Laxalt.
“Senator, would you campaign with President Biden?” ABC News’s Rachel Scott asked Cortez Masto in a Monday segment airing on Good Morning America.
“He is always welcome to Nevada. As you can see, my focus is on getting out and talking to Nevadans,” Cortez Masto said, refusing to directly say she will not campaign with the unpopular president.
Only 38 percent of Nevadans approve of Biden, who has never traveled to the state. Fifty-five percent disapprove.
A source close to the Cortez Masto campaign told NBC News in August that the embattled senator does not want to campaign with Biden because “she wants to keep the focus on her Republican opponent.”
Her Republican opponent, Trump-endorsed Adam Laxalt, has momentum and is leading in the polls by about two points.
Cortez Masto’s political calculation to not campaign with Biden comes as her family and the Biden family have had previous business relationships.
Breitbart News first reported in August that Biden’s 2020 campaign paid a private security firm owned by Cortez Masto’s husband, Paul Masto, who was friends with Hunter Biden and solicited work from the Biden family while Joe Biden was vice president.
Emails from Hunter’s laptop from 2010 reveal he and Paul Masto have been friends and even discussed Masto’s security company while Joe Biden was vice president. In Paul Masto’s email to Hunter, he dubbed Hunter his “buddy” and asked if Hunter knew anyone who needed his security services.
“She might be trying to shy away from the Biden family in an election year but make no mistake, her family has a long history with them,” Laxalt said, tweeting a Breitbart News article about Cortez Masto and her husband’s ties to Hunter and his shady business.
Disclosure: Breitbart News is represented by Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. Adam Laxalt is a partner at Cooper & Kirk. He is not actively engaged or working on any matters for Breitbart News.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.