Tea Party Looks to Unseat Reid
In Nevada, recent polls suggest that Tea Party-backed candidate Sharron Angle may be the GOP's best bet to defeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Sue Lowden’s website for her Nevada Senate campaign includes a press release entitled: “It’s Unanimous: Angle in November Means Reid in December.” The release is a collection of quotes that make the case that only Lowden can defeat Reid. The problem is that the opinion is no longer unanimous. One pollster quoted in the piece told FrumForum that based on recent data he believes that Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle can defeat Reid.
On her website, Lowden quotes Brad Coker, a pollster for Mason-Dixon, “If Harry Reid had to pick his opponent he would pick Sharron Angle.” He no longer agrees with his earlier opinion. “That was a quote given on May 27 related to a poll that ran until May 26.” The position for Lowden is now opposite from where it used to be, “She actually now loses to Reid, while Angle runs slightly ahead.” The latest Mason-Dixon poll indeed shows Angle defeating Reid 44-41 while Lowden loses to Reid 42-41.
If Sharron Angle wins the GOP Senate primary for Nevada (which looks likely), it will be a significant victory for the Tea Party movement. Angle had her political debut at the April 15th Tax Day rallies in Washington D.C. On that day she received her endorsement by the Tea Party Express PAC and picked up nods from the Club for Growth and even Joe the Plumber.
Reid’s campaign has tried to portray Angle as outside the mainstream. One Reid advisor told em>Politico<: “She’s a female Rand Paul. We’re going to show everyone what she stands for.” Her political positions on her website include “transitioning out” Social Security, and abolishing the IRS and the Department of Education.
Coker would advise against Reid being too confident. He points out that Reid’s negatives have remained in the high fifties, while his positive rating has not crossed the forties for two years. He also does not believe that money will be an issue since Republicans will be eager to help fund the campaign to defeat the Senate Majority Leader. (Though Harry Reid’s war chest is currently at an imposing $9.4 million.)
Angle still has major obstacles to overcome. David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada points out that Angle is at a geographic disadvantage, “she is not well known in southern Nevada, which has 70 percent of the population.” The GOP is also not a strong presence in Nevada:
“GOP infrastructure lags significantly behind the Dems in Nevada (there are 65K more Democrats than Republicans here and only the semblance of a party organization) and while she can turn out the vote in rural Nevada, it is a different game down here [in Las Vegas] where the Dems have a lock on pretty much every significant office.”
He also added, “Oh yeah, and she favors Yucca Mountain.” (76% oppose the project.)
While Angle may not be competitive in a usual election year, Reid’s high negatives, and the general unpopularity of Congress, (all a product of the economy), seem to have convinced some pollsters that she can overcome these steep disadvantages. Angle’s campaign will test how strong this “anti-incumbency” sentiment is.