Appearing on Greta Van Susteren’s TV show last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) insisted that he is doing just fine in the polls. So is this true? The short answer is “no.”
“How come your poll numbers are so bleak here in Nevada?” Van Susteren asked. “I mean, you are the most powerful senator, you’re the Senate majority leader. And as I looked the polls, the most recent ones are probably a month old, but they’re bleak.”
“Well first of all, they are not as bleak as a newspaper here tries to make them. We’re doing fine. The polls are fine,” Reid replied. “I’m not going to get into a poll battle, because the only poll that matters is the one in November.”
“But we’re doing fine,” Reid continued. “Even the latest polls put out by the newspaper, which is — runs an editorial every other day against me, shows that with the multiple candidates in the race I win the election. But we are approaching this election, recognizing that the last serious election I had was 12 years ago.”
So how is Reid doing in the polls? The TPM Poll Average has Reid trailing former state GOP chair Sue Lowden by 52.0%-38.3%, trailing former UNLV basketball player Danny Tarkanian by 50.1%-39.3%, and trailing former state Rep. Sharron Angle by 50.5%-39.7%.
The newspaper and poll that Reid referred to was the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a newspaper with whom Reid has had a rocky relationship to say the least. As just on example, last summer he reportedly told them that he hoped they go out of business.
In the Review-Journal’s latest poll from Mason-Dixon, which was conducted in late February, Reid was tested in one question against a generic Republican and generic Tea Party candidate — a potential issue in light of the campaign of “Tea Party” candidate Scott Ashjian. The poll gave Reid 36%, Republican 32%, and Tea Party 18%. However, that same poll also showed Reid trailing all three of the Republican candidates in one-on-one match-ups, by margins ranging from 2-13 points.
They key exchange on the polls begins at the 1:49 mark here:
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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