Bye-Bye Harry?

Will Harry Reid join Tom Daschle as a Washington lobbyist in January 2011? Right now, it looks that way. The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s poll shows Reid trailing both Sue Lowden (52-39) and Danny Tarkanian (51-40). In the Republican primary, Lowden has moved out to a 47-29 lead. Barack Obama recently visited Nevada to promote Reid’s candidacy; afterward, a poll said that 7% of respondents were more likely to vote for Reid because of Obama’s visit, but 17% said they were less likely. Can anyone say, “The Democrats are saddled with an unpopular President”?
One interesting thing about these poll results: there are whole industries devoted to convincing us that sexism and racism are still powerful forces–lots of money rides on it–but it is striking that the only thing I know of that distinguishes Lowden and Tarkanian, gender, has zero impact on Nevada voters. If you look at the breakdowns in the Review-Journal poll, there is no demographic difference in the results. Thus, men are more likely to vote for either Republican (57-32 for Lowden, 56-35 for Tarkanian) whereas among women, it’s basically a dead heat (47-46 for Lowden, 46-45 for Tarkanian). Nor does it matter whether voters live in the city or the country. It’s just one more small data point that makes you wonder whether voters are smarter than the pundits who write about them.

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