Vice President Joe Biden campaigns in Las Vegas for Catherine Cortez Masto, Hillary Clinton

Vice President Joe Biden threw his weight behind Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto Thursday, making three stops in the Las Vegas Valley to stump for her and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Biden stopped in the morning at a campaign field office off Sahara Avenue where he emerged into a room plastered with Clinton-Kaine signs to a standing ovation and raucous applause from a crowd of more than 100 people.

Biden and Cortez Masto also made their way through a staff dining room at Mandalay Bay around lunchtime and spent about 30 minutes shaking hands, hugging and posing for photos with staff members. Biden urged people to vote for Cortez Masto, who is in a tight race with Republican Rep. Joe Heck to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.

Biden slid into a booth next to Thania Lee, who said she had no idea the vice president would be stopping by until she saw people crowding together. Biden told her to look up Cortez Masto, she said.

“She’s going to be our next United States senator, with your help,” Biden told one group. “By the way, she gets it.”

He said President Barack Obama has taken the United States “from crisis to recovery” and said Clinton is “going to write the next chapter.”

“What bothers me is the pundits are saying she’s winning because the other guy is so bad,” Biden said of Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. “That’s not good enough.”

Biden called Trump’s comments about making sexual advances on women in a recently-released 2005 video “the textbook definition of sexual assault.”

Biden’s third stop in Las Vegas was an outdoor rally at the Culinary Local 226. Cortez Masto worked with Biden’s son Beau as attorneys general, she said. Beau Biden died in 2015.

Biden at Thursday’s rally took issue with an attack ad that accuses Cortez Masto of failing rape victims as attorney general when there was a backlog of untested rape kits.

“I wrote the rape kit legislation,” Biden said, contending that congressional Republicans were resistant to providing more funding for the effort.

“They accuse you of their weakness,” Biden said. “So don’t have any of it, ladies and gentlemen.”

Biden called Clinton a close friend who he has known for over 30 years.

“Hillary is going to need a Democratic Senate,” Biden said to cheers.

Biden called Republican presidential candidate Trump’s recently released comments about women “not inconsistent with the way he’s abused power all along.”

“It’s not just Trump. There’s a number of people who share Trump’s views,” Biden said, adding that some are “in the Senate.”

Charles Munoz, Nevada director for the Trump campaign, issued a statement Thursday saying that Nevadans are tired of the “failed status quo from corrupt Washington politicians,” and that a Clinton presidency would be a continuation of the current administration.

When Biden began talking about a double standard in politics for women, a male protester began yelling “Bill Clinton is a rapist.”

Crowd members began trying to drown out the protester and grabbing at his sign.

“No, let him go. That’s OK. That’s all right,” Biden said.

There were similar protests at Las Vegas rallies Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, held in the past week.

Biden pleaded with the crowd to “do everything you can” until the polls close Nov. 8.

“Don’t kid yourself. Just look at how close and how we have underestimated every step of the way, this guy,” Biden said of Trump.

Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow @JamieMunksRJ on Twitter.