Late night host Jimmy Kimmel released an ad Friday backing Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) in her bid for reelection against former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R), slamming him as unfit to serve in the Senate.
“If there’s one thing I think we can all still agree on, it’s that unbalanced people don’t belong in the Senate, and that’s why I am not endorsing Adam Laxalt,” he said.
Kimmel pointed to 14 members of Laxalt’s family endorsing Cortez Masto, saying they had done so because they “know” Laxalt.
He said Laxalt supports Jim Marchant, the GOP nominee for Nevada secretary of state whom Kimmel called a “QAnon wacko.”
Marchant has alleged that he was a victim of “election fraud” in the 2020 election for the state assembly and has said that overhauling Nevada’s “fraudulent” election system would be his top priority. The Las Vegas Sun reported that Marchant has worked with a prominent QAnon figure to recruit candidates, but Politico reported he has said he does not support the ideology himself.
“Forget which side you’re on,” Kimmel said. “Nevada needs a sane person in the Senate.”
Kimmel said he and Cortez Masto went to the same high school and she is a “good person” and “hard worker.”
Polls have shown a tight race for the Senate seat in Nevada, a contest that could determine which party controls the Senate following Tuesday’s midterm elections. Cortez Masto led Laxalt by 1 point in a Suffolk University-USA Today poll released earlier this week.
FiveThirtyEight’s polling average has Laxalt leading by less than 1 point, and Cook Political Report considers the race to be a “toss-up.”