Threats mount against Zach Conine after Trump Thumper ad goes viral

Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

A caller hoping to reach Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine left a profanity-laced voicemail that gets straight to the point: “scumbag.”

“That is all you talk about — Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,” the man screamed. “You are sick in the head.”

The 19-second message is one of about 60 pieces of hostile correspondence and phone calls Conine’s campaign for attorney general has received since releasing an ad last month that shows him playing a carnival-style mallet game, much like Whac-A-Mole — branded “Trump Thumper” — in which President Donald Trump’s caricatured face pops up from the playing surface.

“We expected that some people in President Trump’s orbit would be upset about it,” Conine said. “I didn’t expect the level of vitriol, but I guess we really shouldn’t be surprised, just given how much anger and hatred has entered the political sphere.”

“With Donald Trump, there is a new fight every day,” Conine says in the ad. “He is threatening to rig our elections. He is sending in masked ICE agents. Letting big banks screw Nevadans out of their money and their homes, and driving up costs with illegal tariffs. As your treasurer, I sent him a $2 billion bill for that one.”

Earlier this year, Conine sent the Trump administration a formal invoice for about $2.1 billion, arguing that Nevada consumers and businesses had been overcharged because of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February, ruling 6-3 that IEEPA did not grant the president authority to impose them.

Conine’s ad was released three days after a man was accused of storming the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner armed with firearms and knives. Cole Tomas Allen pleaded not guilty Monday to a charge of attempting to assassinate the president.

The campaign’s post of the ad on X prompted a response from Libs of TikTok, whose social media accounts aggregate and repost videos from left-leaning creators, educators and activists, often presenting the content to a conservative audience as a means of highlighting and critiquing progressive cultural and political movements. The account shared the video and wrote: “The same week Trump faced another ass*ssination attempt, Democrat Nevada AG candidate Zach Conine releases video showing himself smashing Trump’s head with a mallet.” In a separate post, it added: “I’m starting to think that Democrats don’t actually want to tone down the rhetoric.”

The account’s posts were seen by Libs of TikTok’s 4.7 million followers, and the campaign began receiving a torrent of hostile messages shortly after.

Threatening messages are forwarded to Nevada Capitol Police, Conine said. Others range from the profanity-laden voicemail accusing him of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — a phrase used by Trump supporters to describe what they see as irrational criticism of the president — to a postcard from a Laughlin resident calling the ad “offensive” and urging him to take it down.

Conine said the campaign took pains to make the video as cartoonish as possible, and that the concept reflects his day-to-day experience as treasurer.

“Things just keep popping up. And when they pop up, we have to whack them down,” he said. “It does feel some days like we’re playing a game of Whac-A-Mole with the ideas coming out of this administration.”

The harassment is not new for Conine. A Reno man, Matthew Carter, was convicted in 2022 of three counts of aggravated stalking and one count of misdemeanor harassment after sending death threats to Conine and other Nevada officials over false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University found in its 2025 annual report that targeted political violence grew more than 30% over the previous year. U.S. Capitol Police reported a 58% rise in threats against members of Congress in the same period.

“It’s strange to have Capitol police come to your house and show you where you need to put up new cameras,” Conine said. “My kids are 12, 8 and 8, they didn’t sign up for this.”

Conine faces Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro in the June 9 Democratic primary in a race experts consider a toss-up. On the Republican side, Reno attorney and former Cannabis Compliance Board chair Adriana Guzmán Fralick faces Douglas County Commissioner Danny Tarkanian.

Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a Republican who co-chaired Trump’s 2020 Nevada campaign, wrote on X that the ad showed “violence against President Trump is what Democrat primary voters still want.”

Conine fired back, writing: “Mr. January 6 is threatened by a foam mallet. Maybe you’re just worried that as Attorney General I’ll hold your buddy Donald Trump accountable?”

Courts dismissed election fraud lawsuits filed in Nevada and other swing states following the 2020 election, with judges — including those appointed by Trump — finding no evidence of widespread fraud sufficient to overturn the results.