Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Latest Amodei campaign commercial focuses on jobs

Amodei on jobs

Kate Marshall

Kate Marshall

Mark Amodei has just released his third 30-second TV spot in the race for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District and the first in which he appears to focus his message on Nevada.

Amodei picks a popular but potent local topic as fodder for his third commercial: jobs and how he’s going to create them.

To this point, Amodei’s commercials have focused on important but arguably Washington-centered issues. His first was on China’s dominance of the U.S.

His second was on the debt limit and taxes. He says he wouldn’t vote to raise either (there’s no mention, not surprisingly, of the country potentially defaulting as a result).

There’s still a good bit of vitriol directed at Washington in this ad, too. It takes Amodei about half the commercial before he gets to his main sales pitch: “I’m going to create Nevada jobs by reducing taxes and regulation in Washington.”

Amodei also pledges not to rest “until federal lands are freed up for more ranching, mining, and energy development.” The ad shows images of workers in those industries and construction workers as he speaks of “creating Nevada’s desperately-needed jobs.”

In a state still sagging under a 12 percent unemployment rate, pictures like that could be enough to make many unemployed workers salivate.

But Amodei’s going some competition for the jobs mantle from Democratic candidate Kate Marshall.

Marshall may not have filmed as many commercials as Amodei, but she does have a recent record on job creation that she’s touting on the campaign trail. She’s reminding voters that during the last legislative session, she pushed through a bill that set up $50 million in investment funds to attract businesses to Nevada, the interest and dividends from which are slated for the public school systems.

"It would seem that Mr. Amodei hopes a slick TV ad that merely mentions the word "jobs" can erase his reckless and job-killing record sponsoring the largest tax increase in Nevada's history," Marshall spokesman James Hallinan said Wednesday. "While Kate Marshall has a proven record of job creation and fiscal responsibility, Mr. Amodei sponsored and voted for a billion dollar tax increase that included a anti-business payroll tax, punishing companies that wanted to expand jobs in Nevada."

A spokesman for Amodei said Marshall “supports Obama and Reid in their job-killing policies,” adding that “Nevadans don’t need another tax-and-spend bureaucrat in Washington.”

The rest of Amodei’s commercial is rehashed material that seems destined to become an Amodei campaign refrain.

“Are you better off now than you were two years ago?” he asks at the top of the commercial — a line he unveiled in his spot on the debt limit — and closing with his favorite kicker: “Obama and Reid have failed. It’s up to us.”

Amodei’s campaign released the commercial on YouTube via Twitter late Tuesday night.

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