Can Rory win?

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010 | 3:21 p.m.

There are many observers out there – myself among them – who have long thought Rory Reid’s path to November led to the edge of a cliff. There was just no way for Harry’s son to escape Dad’s negatives, to avoid the antipathy toward the Clark County Commission and to beat a perfect candidate (on paper) in Brian Sandoval. Most public polling has reflected this premise – Rory has trailed Brian Sandoval by double digits, including a recent Rasmussen poll that put the margin at a whopping 25 percentage points and a Mason-Dixon survey that was not much better for Reid the Younger, showing him 22 percentage points behind.

Game over? I thought so. Even though I am not a huge fan of either pollster, no survey has shown Sandoval ahead less than double digits in a long time.

Yet, I started hearing rumblings last week of a Reid campaign poll that showed the race much tighter – single digits – but I found it hard to believe. What could have happened to change the dynamic? His TV campaign? He hasn’t been on in awhile. That debate? What, there was a debate? I was watching the Emmys.

I finally obtained a copy of the poll, though, and because it was conducted by a credible national pollster, John Anzalone, I decided to give it a look. Anzalone has a good track record, is highly regarded in Democratic circles and was Barack Obama’s pollster in 2008. Enough said.

But the poll is a head-scratcher. Anzalone did it from Aug. 27-Sept. 1 of 600 likely voters and found:

Sandoval—46 percent

Reid—39 percent

The others/none of the above/undecided—15 percent

I understand the campaign tactic of leaking a poll so the word will get out that a candidate really isn’t quite dead yet. But to call this an outlier is like saying Pluto is quite a few miles from Earth. A couple of comments:

---Anzalone would not cook the poll. But he could, like any pollster, get a bad sample.

---Sandoval’s negatives are at 30 percent in this poll. No other survey outside the Rory campaign has found such a number.

So could the poll be right and all the others wrong? Unlikely.

But even if the race is closer than those other two polls – and I’d guess Sandoval’s folks think it’s closer to 15 or so – two things remain pretty clear:

---Rory needs a game-changing event to alter the dynamic. And I mean better than Sandoval could have, maybe said his kids don’t look Hispanic.

---Remember Sandoval has spent nary a dime on TV talking about the County Commission or showing Rory smiling in a picture with the G-Sting crew. Just a guess: That might have an impact.

It would be nice to think this could turn into a real race because it might actually force Sandoval to release a budget plan (55 days left and nothing). But this poll probably won’t persuade too many people that Rory isn’t right near the edge of that inevitable cliff.