When Sen. Harry Reid retires from the Senate after 2016, he will likely be remembered by most for having led Democrats for more than a decade.
But Reid has also been a powerful force shaping the manner in which Democratic campaigns for Senate are run, and in building the muscular apparatus that enables them to win. For eight years, until November, Reid helped his party maintain a majority in the Senate even as House Democrats lost power.
Reid, 75, made the surprising announcement Friday that he will not seek re-election to the Senate. He will leave in 2016 after a 30-year career there, 11 of them as the leader of Senate Democrats.
With his signature ruthless political style, Reid was also instrumental in winning a Senate majority for Democrats in 2006, steering his party through a changing campaign finance landscape, and helping Senate Democrats weather the 2010 Republican wave.
In 2006, shortly after Reid became leader, Democrats wrested back the Senate majority from Republicans, netting a six-seat gain — in no small part due to Reid’s influence on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and his work with its chairman, Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is expected to succeed Reid as the Democratic leader.
“These guys had the vision for the majority right from day one,” said J.B. Poersch, who was the DSCC Executive Director at the time. “They knew it was possible.”
Together, Reid and Schumer took an aggressive approach to recruiting, ushering into Congress Sens. Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown and Claire McCaskill, among others. President George W. Bush called the election “a thumpin'” for Republicans.
In 2010, in a move likely driven by Reid, a group of his allies, including Poersch, broke off to establish the Senate Majority PAC and Patriot Majority, which would pool money for the Senate Democratic conference and spend it on the most competitive races. The groups enabled Democrats to compete with flush Republican groups on spending — and in 2014, Senate Majority PAC’s spending exceeded that of any other super PAC.
“It’s unrivaled,” said Rob Jesmer, who served as executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. “They really pioneered that approach of having a dedicated super PAC for their conference.”
Senate Republicans only this year launched a comparable super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, to compete.
The word “ruthless” comes up often in discussions about Reid, among foes and friends alike, to describe not only his approach to his own campaigns, but to Democratic races more broadly.
Last year, Reid tangled publicly with former Sen. Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat whom Reid succeeded as leader, over whether to support the Democratic candidate in South Dakota, Rick Weiland, who Reid said stood little chance of winning.
When The Hill asked Daschle if Reid’s comments damaged Weiland, he replied: “Well, it certainly hasn’t helped.”
Weiland lost — as did enough Democratic incumbents to lose the party its majority in a crushing Republican wave. But if Reid regretted his act of political triage, it didn’t show.
“He brings a very calculating strategy to decisions like this,” said Jim Manley, a former senior aide to Reid in the Senate. “If it rubs people the wrong way, so be it. His goal is to win.”
Indeed, Reid recently made a similarly brash move, endorsing Rep. Chris Van Hollen for a Senate seat coming open in Maryland — even as a number of other Democrats weighed bids. The DSCC was forced to awkwardly explain that it would remain neutral.
But there is also a softer side to Reid that has emerged during moments of great stress or crisis.
“Every once in a while he would pull out a poem or something he would be reading and share it,” Poersch said. “It would bring such levity to a situation.”
The way Reid plays the game of politics has at times created a spectacle. Twice during the past two elections, Reid made headlines for political remarks he delivered on the Senate floor. In 2012, Reid fueled unfounded rumors about Mitt Romney’s tax returns when he said, “Word is out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years.” And, in 2014, Reid said Republicans were “addicted to Koch,” referring to the billionaire brothers who spend heavily to support Republican campaigns.
Overall, Reid is much less of a showman than he is a quiet operator, most in his element behind the scenes. When Reid has campaigned for his own re-election, he has done so aggressively — but when it comes to schmoozing and small talk required of politicians, Manley said, Reid “does the bare minimum necessary.”
A few of those Senate campaigns have come close to finishing Reid’s political career, which began when he won a seat in the Nevada legislature at age 28. Reid narrowly lost his first bid for the Senate in 1974, before winning his seat in 1986. In 1998, Reid won re-election by less than 600 votes, a result that was not certified for more than one week after election day. Reid batted down another potential threat in 2010 when he bested Sharron Angle in a difficult year for Democrats.
“Harry Reid always seems to find a way to win,” GOP strategist Greg Ferraro told the Las Vegas Sun at the time. “He never wins big and he never wins pretty, and the rumors of his demise are always greatly exaggerated. He always finds a way.”
