Senate candidate links voters to anime porn website

When Sharron Angle, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada, sent a newsletter to her supporters recently, she compared her record to that of opponent U.S. Rep. Joe Heck and included a link to his supposed website.

But any readers who went to joeheck.com instead found explicit depictions of anime pornography instead of the correct website for her fellow Senate candidate.

The Angle campaign fixed the link on a digital copy posted to their website yesterday, though the misprint persists on the paper copies distributed to Angle’s mailing list. Angle’s campaign suggested in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the incorrect printing happened because her opponent had switched his site address multiple times.

“The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with this domain, and sincerely apologizes for this printing error, as the Heck campaign has changed their web address a number of times,” the statement said.

Heck and Angle are running against each other in the June 14 Republican primary for Senate minority leader Harry Reid’s seat, after he announced last year that he would not run for re-election. Heck, who currently represents Nevada's 3rd congressional district in the House, was widely expected to be the frontrunner for the swing-state seat before Angle launched her own bid in March.

Heck’s campaign suggested despite the apology that the incorrect link was an intentional smear.

"The Angle campaign has been spreading misinformation to voters and unfortunately this is only the latest, ridiculous, dirty trick," campaign manager Brian Baluta told the Review-Journal.

The candidate’s correct website is drjoeheck.com, though he has also used heck4nevada.com, Baluta said.

The address for the pornography site has not always hosted explicit content. The Review-Journal reported that in past years it redirected to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign site, a site funded by the Nevada State Democratic Party and a site bashing Heck himself.

According to Roll Call, the site is registered to a John Rashad in St. Paul, Minnesota.

This story was originally published June 10, 2016 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Senate candidate links voters to anime porn website."