The disastrous start to Sharron Angle’s general election campaign for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat three months ago did not cinch the election for incumbent Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, as polls show the two locked in a neck-and-neck battle to capture the Silver State’s disgruntled voter base.
Reid’s campaign last week suffered a blow when the National Rifle Association decided not to endorse his campaign despite his long history of backing gun rights. Political experts see a much bigger problem for the Senate majority leader. Recent polling data show him in a virtual tie with Angle, despite his nonstop attacks aimed at portraying her as an extreme, far-right candidate.
While Angle’s poll numbers have dropped since her upset victory in the June primary, she can still beat Reid in November, political experts say.
“You don’t have to be the best candidate to win this year, you just have to be a challenger who is somewhat viable running against an unpopular incumbent,” said Brad Coker, managing director at Mason-Dixon Polling & Research.
Reid has never been popular among his constituents, and his favorability rating these days is at an all-time low.
Mason-Dixon last week released a poll showing Reid with 45 percent of the vote and Angle with 44 percent.
The poll, commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Channel 8 News, showed that Reid was viewed less favorably than Angle and that Angle has more opportunity to win over undecided voters.
Coker said there are a number of factors working against Reid, including the state’s 14.2 percent unemployment rate, higher voter turnout expected among Republicans and an anger-driven, anti-incumbent sentiment among many voters.
“They may just decide that despite all of her shortcomings, they will vote for Angle just to get rid of Reid,” Coker said.
But voters clearly have a problem with the gaffe-prone Angle, who once held a double-digit lead over Reid. She has suggested “Second Amendment remedies” might be needed to fend off government tyranny and last month labeled the $20 billion escrow account for victims of the Gulf oil spill a “slush fund.”
When voters in the Mason-Dixon poll were asked if they would have preferred a different Republican candidate, a whopping 68 percent agreed, two-thirds of them Angle supporters. Reid fared only slightly better, with 49 percent of voters wishing for a different Democratic candidate but just 18 percent of them among his backers.
“The bottom line is, there is such a hatred out there against Harry Reid, essentially anyone put on the ballot has a chance of beating him,” said Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston. “The question is, did the Republicans nominate the only person who could lose to him?”
Ralston said he believes the latest polls shows Angle’s downward slide has stabilized and will allow her to remain a viable candidate.
David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, believes Angle can win if Reid makes a major campaign blunder or if the economy worsens.
“Neither candidate has been able to get voters to look at the positive,” Damore said. “It’s just a matter of whether one of them can drag the opposition down.”
