GOP Senate hopeful used donations 'to play dress-up as a Nevada cowboy'

25 April 2024

Jeff Gunter, the Californian businessman hoping to unseat Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada), was recently caught using the largesse of his donors to establish his Western bona fides in an arguably cartoonish way.

The Daily Beast recently combed through Gunter's campaign finance filings and found that he spent nearly $800 in donor funds at retail chain store Boot Barn to purchase cowboy-themed attire that he then donned in a campaign ad from last August. The ad shows Gunter driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck, and sporting a burgundy button-down shirt, cowboy boots and a large belt buckle with "NEVADA" written on it. The buckle also shows a cowboy riding a bucking bronco, a royal flush and the Nevada state seal. The Beast found that both the shirt and the belt buckle can be purchased at Boot Barn for $29.99 and $45, respectively.

"Nevadans deserve a senator who will put America first," Gunter said in the ad. "Now I'm bringing that same fighting spirit to stand up for every Nevadan."

While he's spending significant sums to bolster his Nevada credentials, Gunter's personal history tells a different story. The Beast reported that just last year, Gunter — who was former President Donald Trump's ambassador to Iceland — was registered as a Republican in Nevada and as a Democrat in California. In 2022, he requested a California absentee ballot to vote in the midterm election. And even though he's owned property in Nevada since 2007, Gunter launched his dermatology practice in California and raised his family in the Golden State. He also maintains several residences in Nevada's deep-blue neighboring state.

"Jeff Gunter is a California Democrat who used campaign funds at a California-based store to play dress-up as a Nevada cowboy," an unnamed national Republican strategist for GOP Senate campaigns told the Beast. "You can't make this stuff up."

An unnamed Trump ally also cast doubt on Gunter's attempts to portray himself as an authentic Nevadan, describing Gunter to the Beast as "a fake cowboy, fake Trump supporter, but a real California Democrat."

Gunter disputed the claim that he was merely donning a costume and insisted that he was a proud resident of the Silver State.

“I have no idea what ‘fake cowboy’ means,” Gunter told the Beast. “This ad was filmed in rural Nevada, in fact where I have farms, farmland, and where I have treated patients for over 25 years. I guess my opponents truly have nothing substantive to attack me and instead are debating whether or not I satisfy some sort of Yellowstone cowboy fantasy aesthetic. Pretty weird! I am a proud Boot Barn customer.”

Gunter's campaign recently announced plans for a $3.3 million ad buy in Nevada television markets for a 30-second campaign commercial that shows the footage of him in the Boot Barn cowboy clothes. Gunter says in the ad that he is "110 percent pro-Trump."

The wealthy dermatologist is running against roughly a dozen other candidates for the Republican nomination in Nevada's U.S. Senate race, including former U.S. Army Captain Sam Brown (hand-picked by the GOP establishment) and former state representative Jim Marchant. And while Trump has not yet made his endorsement, Gunter's MAGA-focused campaign has garnered the endorsement of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida).

Click here to read the Beast's full report (subscription required).

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