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On Washington

Harry Reid and Koch Brothers Wage Proxy War for a Nevada Senate Seat

Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the minority leader, at an awards dinner last week for Battle Born Progress in Las Vegas. He is retiring from the Senate.Credit...Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

LAS VEGAS — Nevada’s Senate race could not get much bigger. It is the only real chance Republicans have to flip a Democratic seat. The outcome could seal control of the Senate.

For those who have followed the intrigue of recent campaign cycles, it is riveting for another reason. The battle to choose a successor to Senator Harry Reid, the retiring Democratic leader, is pitting Mr. Reid and his home-state political operation against his archenemies, Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire industrialist brothers whom Mr. Reid has spent the past few years denouncing as the avatars of dark-money politics.

This is an epic proxy war, with Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat and a former Nevada attorney general, and Representative Joe Heck, a Republican, serving as surrogates in a clash to see who gets the last word in this brutal rivalry.

Both sides, as they say around the Texas Hold ’Em tables here in America’s gambling capital, are all in.

“I am going to do everything I can do to prevail, to help her prevail,” a determined Mr. Reid said in an interview at his home in nearby Henderson, Nev., as he takes on a more visible role in the Senate fight.

For their part, leaders of the Koch network, which has at least four groups working to defeat Ms. Cortez Masto, do not disguise the fact that they would sorely like to knock off Mr. Reid’s chosen successor to exact a bit of revenge and to help Republicans hold the Senate.

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Catherine Cortez Masto, a former Nevada attorney general, is running as a Democrat to fill Mr. Reid’s seat. She would be the first Latina elected to the Senate.Credit...Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

“It would certainly be poetic justice to see Harry Reid, who for so long has waged an unhinged personal vendetta against people we care a lot about, to see his seat go to someone who supports limited government, free speech,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-aligned group mounting an extensive ground game against Ms. Cortez Masto.

With polls showing the Nevada race close, Mr. Reid has become pretty caustic with his own speech when it comes to the Kochs and their preferred candidate, Mr. Heck, a three-term House member and a former state lawmaker.

The Senate minority leader, who for years has taken to the Senate floor to assail the Kochs for taking advantage of campaign finance laws to covertly funnel money into defeating Democrats, seems more than willing to go on the attack for Ms. Cortez Masto, who chooses her own words very carefully.

While receiving an award on Thursday from a progressive group whose leadership praised him for “holding the Koch brothers accountable,” Mr. Reid declared that the goal of the Kochs and their allies was to turn the United States into an oligarchy with a chosen few running the nation for their personal benefit.

“They want to make sure that they pick the next Supreme Court justices,” said Mr. Reid, who regularly refers to Mr. Heck as a fraud and a phony. And he lashed out at Mr. Heck for being behind an advertising campaign that blamed Ms. Cortez Masto for a rise in violent crime even though the state attorney general in Nevada has little to do with local law enforcement.

“Heck is an absolute stooge for these right-wing nut cases,” Mr. Reid said.

The Heck camp dismisses Mr. Reid’s comments as over-the-top criticism that will backfire with Nevada voters already familiar with the congressman. They say the combative tone reflects Mr. Reid’s rising fear about losing the seat, which could be interpreted as a rejection of his 30-year career in the Senate.

“It is clear that in terms of both outside help and fund-raising that Harry Reid is calling in every favor and connection he has and that this is about continuing his legacy,” said Brian Baluta, a spokesman for Mr. Heck.

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Marcos Lopez, right, and Lorena Tabrane knocked on doors on Monday in Las Vegas for Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-aligned group mounting an extensive ground game against Ms. Cortez Masto.Credit...Isaac Brekken for The New York Times

The Heck campaign is eager to link Ms. Cortez Masto to Mr. Reid, and at times it can be hard to tell from its Twitter feeds whether it is running against her or Mr. Reid.

Mr. Baluta is correct that outside groups are supporting Ms. Cortez Masto, including the League of Conservation Voters and the Senate Majority PAC, a group run by Democrats with connections to Mr. Reid that has spent nearly $2.5 million on ads against Mr. Heck.

But Mr. Heck is receiving help from outside the state as well. Freedom Partners Action Fund, which relies on considerable Koch funding, reports that it has spent more than $4.5 million against Ms. Cortez Masto. Concerned Veterans for America, another part of the Koch network, earlier ran more than $700,000 in ads on behalf of Mr. Heck, a military veteran.

Mark Holden, the chairman of Freedom Partners and general counsel to Koch Industries, said the Koch network was backing Mr. Heck because he supported policies that would “help drive a free and open society.”

“This will be a welcome change from the petty bitterness of Senator Reid, and the divisive and harmful policies that he favored, which Ms. Masto also supports,” Mr. Holden said.

As for the ground game, Americans for Prosperity has three offices in the state, plans on opening a fourth and intends to marshal hundreds of volunteers to go door to door to reach out to voters identified as being open to opposing Ms. Cortez Masto.

“Our No. 1 goal is to educate voters on her record,” said Adam Jones, the state director of the group, as young volunteers bustled around the organization’s headquarters in a strip mall.

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Representative Joe Heck, the Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, is trying to flip a Democratic seat.Credit...David Becker/Associated Press

The Libre Initiative, another group partly funded by Freedom Partners, is for the first time actively opposing a candidate and hopes to mobilize Hispanic voters against Ms. Cortez Masto in a race where the Latino vote will be crucial. The stance means the organization, formed to promote economic opportunity for Latinos, will be trying to defeat the woman who would be the first Latina elected to the Senate.

“A big-spending, big-government Latina is still a big-spending, big-government liberal,” said Dan Garza, the executive director of the group.

Mr. Heck is generally seen as having a slight edge in the race at the moment and is being helped by the fact that Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, who was endorsed by Mr. Heck, has not fallen as far in Nevada as he has in other swing states.

Reflecting Democratic concern, some Reid staff members, including Kristen Orthman, his communications director, are being dispatched to the state party to bolster the final Democratic push.

Mr. Reid, who concedes he can sometimes be “harsh” in his comments, remains confident that Democrats will hold his seat. And he takes pride in the fact that it is such a target of the Kochs.

“I think people are not only identified by their friends, but also their enemies,” said Mr. Reid, who promised to stay as aggressive in protecting his seat as he has been in his long-running feud with the Kochs.

“Say what you want about me — and people do — but as my dad said, ‘If you do something, don’t do it half-assed,’” Mr. Reid said. “Just do it.”

Follow Carl Hulse on Twitter @hillhulse.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Reid and Kochs Wage Proxy Fight for Senate. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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