The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, has been heavily influenced by special interests, according to a new ad campaign from the Freedom Partners Action Fund.
Masto received more than $70,000 from the taxicab industry and accepted more than $63,700 in gifts, which included tickets to the Latin Grammys, a NASCAR race and thousands of dollars spent on travel and hotel rooms.
The taxicab industry competes directly with Uber, which focuses on the consumer by allowing passengers and drivers to rate each other, a way to pay without cash, and the accessibility of getting a ride by using your phone.
Drivers benefit as well by working for Uber as they earn about $19 an hour while cab drivers earn about $12.90. Uber drivers also have flexibility because independent contractors can work as little or as much as they want.
"After taking seventy thousand from taxi companies, Catherine Cortez Masto drove Uber out of Nevada," the ad states. "She lived large on more than sixty thousand dollars of trips and gifts from other special interests. In Washington, would she work for us? Or them?"
"If Nevadians want to know whom Catherine Cortez Masto will represent in the U.S. Senate, look no further than her record of fighting for special interests at the expense of hardworking taxpayers as state attorney general," said Freedom Partners Action Fund spokesman Bill Riggs. "Nevadans deserve a senator who will work for them, not one who will embrace the special-interest culture that plagues Washington."