You don’t need me to tell you that the Wall Street Journal editorial page is dishonest. But I will point it out anyway. In his piece about Harry Reid’s poor polling numbers, Jim Carlton provides this explanation:
According to an independent Mason-Dixon poll Aug. 23, Mr. Reid lagged behind Mr. Tarkanian by 49% to 38% and 45% to 40% against Ms. Lowden. Meanwhile, a Sept. 2 poll by liberal Web site Daily Kos found 52% of likely voters holding an unfavorable opinion of Mr. Reid.
Driving up Mr. Reid’s unpopularity at home is the liberal agenda that he has been championing for Democrats nationwide — including the health-care overhaul and $787 billion stimulus package — which is alienating some residents in his mostly moderate state.
First of all, it’s misleading to cite the Research 2000 poll as a ‘liberal Web site Daily Kos’ poll. Markos paid for the poll, but he didn’t conduct it. Research 2000 is a respected polling outfit and their polling should be cited as reliable. Secondly, here’s what the poll found:
Yet if anything is hurting [Reid], it’s anemic support among Democrats in those head-to-head matchups — barely breaking 70 percent against both challengers. It could be argued that Reid will bring those Democrats home by election day, and he likely will score dominant numbers among Democrats once the votes are cast. The problem isn’t in the percentages, but in the intensity of that support. If Democrats remain unexcited about Reid and his stewardship of the Senate, they could very well stay home on election day. If that happens, we could have the second Democratic Senate leader in six years ousted by home state voters.
Now, I am not arguing that there is no price to be paid for being the Majority Leader when you represent a swing-state. We learned this when Tom Daschle was ousted from office in 2004. It’s much safer for a Democratic senator from a red or purple state to hang back, keep a low profile, and occasionally separate themselves from the liberal wing of the party. But the polling out of Nevada shows that Reid is doing poorly in large part because thirty percent of registered Democrats are refusing to voice support for his reelection. He only has a 59% approval rating from Democrats.
Democrats are frustrated that it is so difficult to get anything done in the Senate and they place a lot of blame for that on Harry Reid. Most of that criticism is unwarranted in the sense that no alternative leader could do anything differently to change things for the better. But Reid will benefit everytime something on Obama’s agenda actually get passed through the upper chamber.
It’s true that Reid will also need to improve his standing with independents if he wants to win reelection. And, sometimes, what excites the base turns off the middle. So, this isn’t a simple scenario where all Reid has to do is ram home a liberal agenda and his polls numbers will magically correct themselves. But midterm elections are low-turnout elections, where the most likely people to stay home are the independents. Independents are also low-information voters, which means that they respond more to television advertising and their general sense of whether you have the momentum or not. With Reid’s huge money advantage, he knows he will win the air-war. What he has to avoid is the perception that he’s a dead duck. He needs to shore up his base and improve his poll numbers. Then the independents will come home.
Small states like Nevada tend to reelect their incumbents once they have seniority because the federal dollars those candidates bring home cannot be matched by a backbencher. This is the same reason why Arlen Specter has a big edge on Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania race. Nevada would pay a heavy price for losing the Majority Leader, just as Mississippi took a hit when Trent Lott was forced out.
Reid should be fine for reelection so long as Democrats don’t associate him with a failure to enact Obama’s agenda. The Wall Street Journal probably knows this, which is precisely why they are advising him to run to the middle. A Majority Leader doesn’t get to run to the middle. They have to represent the whole caucus as best as they can while enacting the party’s priorities.
