Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

jon ralston:

Observing the carnage in the Reid-Angle race

Imagine a victim of a car wreck lying on the side of the road bleeding to death. He can’t be saved. His wounds are too severe.

Then, a deus ex machina appears in the form of a woman (dressed in white, not black) who had taken a right turn, ran over a lady carrying chickens and miraculously ended up on the same road. The mere sight of this angel, surely sent by God, starts to revive the man.

And then, in a bizarre twist as if out of some unlikely Kevin Smith/Tobe Hooper collaboration, the nearly expired man smiles, pulls out a gun and shoots the woman — repeatedly. She falls to the ground, bleeding to death.

Welcome to the U.S. Senate race in Nevada, or as I like to call it: Either Sharron Angle or Harry Reid is dead, one in an occasional series.

The latest Mason-Dixon poll makes clear what many intimate observers of this race have sensed and what even Angle’s campaign strategists must know because of their strategy. Angle is hemorrhaging among GOP voters, and the damage is severe.

I am no fan of Mason-Dixon surveys, but the trend in the latest poll conducted for a pro-Angle PAC newsletter validates other data. The poll showed a dead heat — 45 percent for Reid, 44 percent for Angle — but the internals show Angle has been badly hurt by Reid’s TV campaign. Perhaps more ominous for Angle is that she has significantly outspent Reid on television during the past fortnight and has not moved.

Consider the startling numbers in the Mason-Dixon poll: 66 percent of those who said they support Angle said they preferred another GOP nominee while only 18 percent of Reid voters said they would have selected someone else. I don’t care what the horse race says — those numbers should frighten Republicans.

The national folks get it:

CNN: “When it comes to picking the Republican Senate nominee in Nevada, it appears the great majority of Republican voters there want a mulligan.”

ABC: “Voters were already fed up with Reid. And now it seems they are already a little tired of Angle.”

In this topsy-turvy race, which once was all about whether Reid could be saved, it has become about whether the Republicans can save their troubled nominee. Reid, who is anathema to voters, may top out at 45 percent or thereabouts — indeed, as I have said, even if Angle were exposed as a serial killer, she still might get 40 percent of the vote because of the Reid-hate coursing through the body politic.

But this latest survey shows that Reid’s campaign, which has featured Angle’s own words to paint her as extreme, has started to peel away Republicans and independents. It doesn’t matter much if those folks vote for Reid or “none of these candidates” — if they don’t vote for Angle, he will win. And with two-thirds of her voters saying they would prefer another nominee, that’s a sign of softness that threatens her chances.

Of undecided voters, nearly four-fifths said they would have chosen another nominee besides Angle; only 58 percent of those folks said they would have preferred someone other than Reid.

Even if some of these numbers are off because of the margin of error or the pollster’s methodology, they can’t be so far off so as not to be indicative of Angle’s problem. And as the campaign approaches the homestretch, she clearly has adopted an all-in strategy: Her campaign is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into TV, surely spending most of her war chest to try to apply a tourniquet.

She is receiving some needed assistance from American Crossroads, the Karl Rove group that has run some devastating ads about Reid, the economy and health care reform. The outfit announced last week that it is going to invest money here and elsewhere in get-out-the-vote programs. But the Democrats have such a head start — going back to 2007 — that it may be too little, too late.

Reid has pushed the envelope in some of his recent attacks, making it appear as if Angle believes traitors are in Congress. She did foolishly agree with a frothing talk-radio host who said there are “domestic enemies” on Capitol Hill. But I don’t think she believes that as much as she is awfully careless with incendiary rhetoric, a pattern we have seen with her “Second Amendment remedies” classic, allowing Team Reid to conflate the two.

The last two months of this race will be even more intense than what has transpired. The carnage will be terrific.

If you can’t stand the sight of blood, avert your eyes. If you can.

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