Joe Heck was thought to have the best shot at filling Harry Reid’s Senate seat, but his campaign has been haunted by Donald Trump’s controversies

It’s hard to be a Republican candidate these days if you were late to the renounce-Donald-Trump party. It’s especially tough to be Joe Heck.

The three-term Nevada congressman is embroiled in what may be the highest-profile contest for the US Senate in 2016: the race to fill the seat of Democrat Harry Reid, the powerful, outgoing Senate minority leader and the man Republicans most love to hate.

The race between Heck and Catherine Cortez Masto, a former Nevada attorney general, could decide whether the US Senate stays in Republican hands or tips to the Democrats. If Cortez Masto wins, she will be the first Latina ever elected to the largely white, largely male legislative body.

With so much at stake, the Nevada race has become one of the most expensive in the country, attracting tens of millions of dollars from outside Super Pacs, including more than $8m from the Koch brothers’ Freedom Partners Action Fund.



Heck was believed to have the best chance to wrest a Senate seat away from the Democrats this year.

But not any more. And he can thank Donald Trump for his troubles.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto, left, with Senator Elizabeth Warren at a rally in Las Vegas. Photograph: John Locher/AP

Ever since Heck withdrew his support from the beleaguered Republican standard bearer, saying he “can no longer look past the pattern of behavior and comments that have been made by Donald Trump”, the would-be senator has been savaged by critics all across the political spectrum.

He was jeered by a “disappointed” conservative when he announced that he no longer supported Trump – a day after a tape surfaced in which the presidential nominee bragged about sexually assaulting women. Trump loyalists have flooded right-leaning radio shows expressing outrage at Heck’s betrayal.

“I just think he made a colossal mistake in a razor-tight race,” the Nevada conservative talkshow host Kevin Wall said on air. “And we’ve already had Republicans who have called the show and said, ‘I was gonna vote for Joe Heck. I’m gonna vote for Catherine Cortez Masto.’”

Cortez Masto has shifted her anti-Heck rhetoric accordingly. She has downplayed the epithet “typical Washington politician” in favor of campaign speeches such as this, in Las Vegas on Sunday:

“We all know what’s at stake in this election. There’s two words. Let me say them: Donald Trump. And you know what? I don’t think any of you are surprised, but my opponent, congressman Heck – for the last eight months, congressman Heck was Donald Trump’s biggest supporter right here in Nevada.”

Cortez Masto was introducing none other than the campaigner-in-chief on Sunday, at a get-out-the-vote event urging Nevadans to take advantage of the state’s early balloting system. Barack Obama is perhaps the biggest name to go after Heck to date; in Las Vegas, he was certainly one of the most scathing.

“On issue after issue, Catherine Cortez Masto is going to be by your side working for you,” Obama said, warming to his task. “Her opponent is gonna have Koch brothers on line one and Donald Trump on line two. When Donald creates his TV station, I’m sure Joe Heck will be up on there giving interviews.

“Even after rescinding his endorsement of Trump, he said, ‘I want to support him. I really do.’ Really?” Obama said, referring to Heck remarks that were recorded at a closed-door fundraiser and released on 17 October by CNN. “So how does that work? You’re for him, but you’re not for him. But you’re kinda for him. What the Heck?”

Such a stance, the president said, is “not leadership. That’s cynical. That means you’ll say anything or be anybody just to get elected depending on what’s convenient at the time.”

The Heck campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Heck is now the poster child for down-ballot Republicans’ election day fears. Since the Trump campaign began imploding this month, Heck has trailed Cortez Masto in all but two of 11 polls. RealClearPolitics aggregated the most recent Nevada surveys and figures the Democrat leads by 2 percentage points.

And the specter of Trump dogs Heck wherever he goes.

During a 14 October Nevada Senate debate, Heck was asked why it took him so long to distance himself from Trump. His answer was heartfelt and intimate.

“My wife was the victim of domestic abuse in a prior relationship,” he said. “So the decision I made was an extremely personal decision. As an emergency room doctor, I’ve taken care of far too many women that have been victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, and I have great empathy for anyone who has ever had to experience such a tragedy.”

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On Tuesday, at his national security roundtable in Reno, Heck sidestepped questions about whom he will vote for on 8 November.

Heck was asked by an apparent Trump supporter why he was dodging the question of who should be the next commander-in-chief. His response? “The American people will decide,” he said, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.

After the event ended, Heck was pressed by a reporter about why he would not name his presidential pick, now that early voting has begun in the Silver state and so much hangs in the balance.

“It’s my ballot,” he said. “I’ll wait till November 8.”

Then came the follow-up question: “Don’t you think people have a right to know who their possible future senator is going to vote for?”

“No, I don’t,” he said in an answer that has already become fodder for Nevada Democrats. “It’s a personal decision who you vote for. It’s a secret ballot just like your ballot is a secret ballot.”