Anti-Bernie Dem Barrage Ramps Up In Nevada with Ads Calling Him ‘Socialist’ Who Hurt ‘Latino Community’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) may be leading in the polls for Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, but the efforts against him in the state escalated again Wednesday with a $200,000 ad buy targeting Latino and centrist voters in the diverse early contest.

The Big Tent Project, which aims to boost moderates, released two ads, one accusing Sanders of profiting while pushing nuclear waste on Latino communities, and another aimed at voters who may be worried about electing a big-spending Democratic socialist.

Politifact fact-checked the nuclear waste claim when Sanders ran against Hillary Clinton and found that he did vote for the bill that would allow Vermont and Maine to dump low-level nuclear waste that would include “items such as scrap metal and worker’s gloves… as well as medical gloves used in radiation treatments at hospitals,” in Sierra Blanca, Texas, whose population was 66% Mexican-American at the time, with an average income of $8,000.

The ad’s assertion that Sanders “profited” from the bill is based on a Daily Kos article that flags tax return information showing Jane Sanders — Bernie’s wife — drawing a paycheck from the commission that was set up by the law.

The second ad, which is part of an eventual $1 million to be spent against Sanders in Nevada and South Carolina by the group, labels Sanders a “socialist” and focuses on the estimated $60 trillion price tag for Sanders’ most ambitious plans, saying the cost of those plans would be Trump’s reelection.

“Either this stuff is debated now, when Democrats have time to consider it fully, or it will come out in the fall, in a torrent of negative ads by the Trump team that would likely prove politically fatal,” the group’s head Jonathan Kott told POLITICO Playbook. “Democrats deserve the facts before they choose a nominee.”

The new effort comes after Mediaite first reported a pro-Israel Democratic group was casting for diverse voters in Nevada for an anti-Sanders campaign and after the influential Culinary Union in the state told its 60,000 members his Medicare for All plan would do away with their union negotiated health care.