Friday, April 17, 1998 | 10:39 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., remains slightly ahead of Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., in the fund-raising battle for Reid's Senate seat, according to the latest reports from the Federal Election Commission.
Ensign, however, is spending his cash more frugally than the incumbent senator, and is within striking distance of Reid's $1.5 million campaign kitty.
In the first three months of 1998, Reid raised $517,000 for his bid to win a third Senate term -- half as much money as he raised for all of 1997, according to the FEC reports.
From January to March, Ensign's campaign took in $424,000.
One independent campaign analyst said both candidates' fund-raising efforts were impressive. "It portends a good race," said Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report, a Washington-based quarterly election magazine. "This is going to be one of the better races in the country."
Ensign is fighting an uphill battle. Even in the politically turbulent 1990s, defeating an incumbent senator has been about as difficult as firing a tenured professor. In 1992, five incumbents lost Senate re-election battles; in 1994, two; in 1996, one.
With businessman Bruce James now out of the race, Ensign is not facing a strong GOP primary challenge and therefore has been able to hold on to his resources. So far in 1998 he has spent $110,664.
As of April 1, Ensign had $1.22 million in cash on hand for the final seven-month stretch run before the November election.
But Reid, with more money to burn, has already taken to the television and radio airwaves with ads trumpeting his efforts to block the short-term storage of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada. Those ads were worth at least $400,000, according to independent estimates.
That money was well spent -- for now, according to Duffy. An independent Mason-Dixon poll in February showed Reid leading Ensign by nine percentage points, but after the ads ran a Democratic poll said Reid had stretched his lead to 17 points, 49 percent to 32 percent.
All told in 1998, Reid has spent $657,782 on his campaign. That leaves him with $1.53 million in cash for the rest of the race, a healthy $300,000 advantage over Ensign but also the closest margin yet between the two campaign war chests.
When the serious fund-raising began in early 1997 for the Senate race, Reid had about $1 million more than Ensign, who burnt up most of his cash in a tough 1996 re-election battle.
Ensign is taking the more traditional spending approach for challengers: "Hold on to it, because you're going to need it in the end," Duffy said.
Both lawmakers took in relatively the same percentages from individual donors and political action committees. Reid raised $302,917 from individuals, about 58 percent of his total from January through March.
Ensign took in $237,846 from individuals, almost 56 percent of his January-March fund-raising take.
A key to watch, according to Duffy, will be what Reid does next with his money, whether he continues to put ads on television to maintain or stretch his lead over Ensign. If Reid stays quiet for a while, his lead may drift back to the 10-point range and his $400,000 worth of ads this early in the race will have been a waste, she said.
"For the time being," Duffy said, "it was money well spent."
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