You bet he will try.
It has been national news for a while now that Reid is running very poorly in his polls, and in a recent Mason Dixon poll that pitted him against his two top challengers (right now there are 10 Republicans vying for his seat), he lost handily to both. From the Las Vegas Review Journal:
Reid trails Lowden and Tarkanian in the polls. In a recent survey of Nevadans by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, 49 percent of respondents chose Lowden compared with 39 percent for Reid in one general election scenario.
In another, 48 percent chose Tarkanian compared with 43 percent who chose Reid.
Good news? Yes, but not entirely. This story also notes that compared to his rivals, Reid is the top fundraiser by a very long shot:
Incumbent Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., raised more than $2 million in three months to add to a campaign fundraising haul of more than $12 million, according to records obtained Tuesday.
Reid, who is behind in the polls, plans to raise as much as $25 million to hold onto the U.S. Senate seat, which he first took in 1986….
Las Vegas businessman Danny Tarkanian, who announced his bid Aug. 21, raised $271,331 from 6,780 donors…
Former GOP official Sue Lowden didn’t announce her candidacy until Oct. 1, and her first reporting date isn’t until January.
Investment banker John Chachas has raised about $1.4 million. He contributed about $1 million to that total.
Now with a field as large as the Republican’s many and varied candidates, it makes sense that Reid would have the upper hand in fundraising, right now. The bigger question, however, is whether or not whatever Republican does win the nomination will be able to compete even then. The Reid machine in Nevada is a very powerful one, and we are similarly saddled with a terribly unpopular Republican governor, and our other state Senator, Republican Ensign, has had all of his own recent scandal.
It makes for a very interesting political environment. Nevada is second only to Michigan in unemployment, and there is widespread cynicism here regarding the Stimulus from Obama and Reid, as well as a growing feeling that Reid is not really concerned with Nevada, but his position as Senate leader. So both Democrats and Republicans are in rather hot water with the voters, and both are scrambling to separate themselves from Obama and Gibbons and Ensign. All, that is, except for Reid.
Reid’s strategy, as it is emerging, is to emphasize not distance from the unpopular policies in D.C., but his own personal power. Hence, his most recent 60 second ad running across Nevada (follow the link to view the ad):
The top Senate Democrat, who has looked vulnerable to a Republican challenger in 2010 in a series of opinion polls, is on-air in Nevada boasting of his clout in a 60-second TV ad.
“He’s the most powerful senator Nevada has ever had, and Harry Reid’s working harder than ever to get Nevada’s economy back on track,” the narrator in the ad says…
“America’s most powerful senator,” the ad concludes. “Harry Reid: Determination that makes a difference.”
An interesting argument, no? If Reid is “America’s most powerful senator,” pray tell why Nevada has one of the worst economies in the nation? The method of the Republican response to this should be patently obvious, but finally comes back to the original issue of funding. Reid is going to deluge Nevada with such similar adds, along with his usual vicious attacks upon opponents, for an entire year, and he has the money to do so. All the while, Republicans are going to be fighting a competitive battle for the nomination.
Reid’s seat is asking to be picked up by a conservative politician, but it will be a long and hard road, and with the current chaos of the Nevada Republican party, it is going to prove all the more difficult. This election, then, is not only going to be a test of popular reaction to Obama, Reid, and Pelosi’s aggressively leftist agenda, but will be a bellwether of the Republican party’s ability to harness anti-progressive sentiment behind a conservative movement.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Hey, Roland is back! Nice post.
There was an interesting article in the Las Vegas Sun Sunday on the tough spot Reid finds himself in right now with the Health Care bill’s abortion provisions. It laid out the pressure he’s under from his party and pro-abortion groups to get any sort of Stupak-type language out of the Senate bill, but that his calculations need to take his re-election into account. The article seemed skeptical that abortion would be a particularly big problem for him since Nevada historically doesn’t get too charged up over the issue, but the author didn’t seem particularly friendly to the pro-life position. For myself, I can’t really see Reid wanting to add any more divisive issues to his record right now.
here’s the article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/nov/15/seeking-common-ground-abortion/
November 17th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Thanks.
I think that it is a really interesting question. The abortion angle in Nevada is a strange one for three reasons right off the top of my head:
1. The bishop here does very little about it. So little, in fact, that you never hear anything run by the Church other than pro-life rosaries, which are not diocese-wide, leaving me with the impression that they are only organized by the particular parishes. It is a real shame that he is so mum about abortion.
2. As Dick Morris pointed out in his talk that I went to, Nevada has a huge percentage of constantly shifting population, such that any given election year, 30-40% of the people did not even live here for the last election. So it turns out to be very difficult to gauge the pro-life sentiment in the shifting masses, and because of that, I think the issue tends to become muted…not that people don’t care, but that no one knows how much.
3. Reid is a Mormon. Generally out here, the Mormon’s tend to be conservative, particularly on family issues. So it makes things interesting in his campaign to be attached to the Latter Days, while advocating such extreme policy. It really undercuts him, at least in my mind.
All of this is really just to say that I think that you are right in saying that he won’t want to add any more divisive issues on his record, and it will be interesting to watch as he maneuvers over the next 12 months. But, by the way, there are several radio adds airing these days that are attacking his pro-death stance (in this bill as well as over the past 6 years) even though he, just as Fearless Leader, pledged to reduce the number of abortions. So the message is already hitting the public, and I hope it will have some serious impact…