Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sent a fundraising pitch to supporters to help Rep. Patrick Murphy’s (D-Fla.) Senate bid following a fiery confrontation last week with the congressman’s primary election opponent.
Reid’s email bluntly states “I want Alan Grayson to lose” and calls on supporters to donate to Murphy’s campaign in order to “elect strong Democrats” and help the party win back majority control of the Senate.
{mosads}Grayson and Murphy are in a bitter primary battle as they try to win the seat being vacated by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
Reid sent the fundraising pitch after a heated exchange between the two men last week when the Nevada senator was a guest at a meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Reid has previously called on Grayson to drop out of the race over allegations that he violated House rules by inappropriately running a hedge fund as a congressman. At last week’s meeting, Grayson confronted him about it, saying that the ethics allegations are true.
“Shame on you. It’s not true,” Grayson said, according to sources in the room.
“It is true, and I want you to lose,” Reid fired back.
In April, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an independent ethics watchdog, released a report that there is “substantial reason to believe” that Grayson violated House ethics rules and federal law by managing a the fund, and it called for a formal investigation.
Murphy said his Grayson isn’t qualified to hold public office but stopped short of calling on him to resign or drop out.
Grayson has denied any wrongdoing and accused Murphy of fueling the allegations to hurt his Senate bid. Murphy has denied that his campaign colluded with ethics investigators to leak details of the OCE’s probe.
The winner of the Democratic nomination will face one of the five Republican candidates running. The crowded GOP field includes Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), and businessmen Todd Wilcox and Carlos Beruff.