The General Election is less than six weeks away, but political attack ads are already in full swing.
You’ve most likely seen several here on KTVN 2 News Nevada. We like to give them a “Reality Check” to see how accurate they are.
The first one we will look at is the “Kate Marshall Gambles” advertisement paid for by the Kathleen Taylor for Reno Mayor campaign.
Marshall handily won the primary with about 45 percent of the vote to Taylor’s almost 19 percent.
The attack ad centers around Marshall’s time as Nevada State Treasurer and brings in the topic everyone is talking about, data centers.
Claim one: $50 million investment
In the ad, Kathleen Taylor says, “As State Treasurer, Kate Marshall gambled $50 million of taxpayer money in a Wall Street investment that collapsed."
Verdict: Misleading
FactCheck.org did a fact check on this same exact claim Congressman Mark Amodei used when the two were running for Congressional District 2 in 2011.
In the article, in 2007, the state contracted with lending agent Wachovia to invest some of the state’s portfolio.
$50 million was invested with Lehman Brothers.
Marshall was sworn into the Nevada State Treasurer’s Office in 2007, but she says her predecessor, Brian Krolicki, was the one who hired Wachovia.
Further in the article, Mark Mathers, Senior Deputy State Treasurer at the time, said Wachovia didn’t have to run investments by the state and did not.
In 2008, Lehman went bankrupt as the housing crisis and the Great Recession of 2008 came crashing down. Lehman offered to sell the bonds back for pennies on the dollar.
After some time, Marshall was able to get almost all of it back.
“I held onto those bonds until they slowly started to gain money and we won the lawsuit," she said.
Claim two: Seven years
Taylor says, “It took years for the state to recover.”
Verdict: True
According to the Las Vegas Sun, the money was recouped in 2014, after the investment was made in 2007.
Claim three: 54 percent increase
Taylor then later claims, “All while she increased spending in her own office,” with a graphic saying it was by 54 percent.
Verdict: Mostly false
This is because Taylor is pulling from the wrong number set.
The 54 percent comes from the State Treasurer’s annual reports from 2007 and 2014.
The 2007 report says $4,096,369 was expended, and the 2014 report says $6,312,567 was expended. These numbers include bonds, investments, the College Savings Program, and much more.
Most are not taxpayer dollars, and it’s not her office’s spending.
"It's obviously a misunderstanding on how you read budgets and how you don't understand the different funding parts that the treasurer deals with," Marshall said.
Those true numbers are found in the executive budgets for the state.
Marshall says the 2007-2008 actual numbers, listed in the 2009-2011 Biennium Report, were based on a previously approved budget when she was not in office.
In the 2008-2009 work program she presented and got approved by the Nevada Legislature, projected expenditures were $2,674,850.
In her last budget, listed in the 2015-2017 Biennium Report, $2,469,968 was spent. Compared to the work program, that’s a 7.7 percent decrease.
Since the work program is not fully indicative of what was actually spent, if we use actual expenditures in 2009-2010, it was $2,408,848, according to the 2011-2013 Biennium Report. Using this number, spending increased by about 2.5 percent.
Claim four: Quitter
Taylor’s next claim is, "She quit her last two political jobs."
Verdict: Misleading
When Marshall was Lieutenant Governor in 2021, President Joe Biden asked her to serve in the White House as Liaison to Governors.
She took the role, and then, after a year and a half, she was offered another job in the federal government, but turned it down to return home to Reno.
Claim five: Data center
"What's worse, Kate Marshall gave $25 million in tax breaks to data centers,” is the last claim Taylor makes in the ad.
Verdict: Misleading
Marshall sat on the board for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
The board granted $25 million in tax breaks to the Google Data Center out in Storey County in September of 2020.
However, the law that passed in the 2015 Nevada Legislative Session, SB170, states that the board “shall” grant tax breaks to data centers if they meet certain requirements.
The board had no choice.
That has since been changed after a Nevada law went into effect last year, giving the board more flexibility.
Looking at Taylor’s data center record, she was the sole ‘no’ vote on the Reno City Council for the data center moratorium.
She also voted in favor of two data centers in 2025.
“We are open for business,” Taylor said in a January 22, 2025 council meeting to the Webb Data Center presenter.
Later, the council voted 5-2 to uphold the Reno Planning Commission’s approval of Webb Data Center after an appeal was filed citing concerns with energy usage, tax abatements, and water.
Taylor has supported Governor Joe Lombardo’s recent data center executive order to put more guardrails around them.
At this time, Marshall has not released an attack ad on Taylor or placed any television advertising.
