At some point, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tanking poll numbers have to hit bottom. Despite being among the most powerful men in the government — well, or maybe exactly because of it — Reid can’t seem to get his constituents back home in Nevada interested in reelecting him.
As the months go on, Reid continues to sink further and further the polls, but a new poll out today shows he hasn’t found the bottom yet. With the addition of today’s new Rasmussen poll of the Nevada race, the TPM Poll Averages of hypothetical matchups in Nevada now show Reid trailing all three of the likely GOP nominees by double digits, garnering less than 40% of the vote each case.
The message is clear: whatever Reid is doing to boost support in Nevada these days, it’s not working.
Against former Nevada GOP chair Sue Lowden, the frontrunner for her party’s nomination, Reid continues to see his poll numbers decline. The TPM Poll Average for a Lowden-Reid matchup now shows Lowden ahead by a margin of 50.3-38.6.
It’s the same story when Reid is pitted against other GOP candidates in the polls. Even as other embattled Democratic incumbents, most notably Sen. Blanche Lincoln (AR) and Sen. Arlen Specter (PA), have seen their poll numbers against GOP opponents rise lately, Reid’s numbers have continued to travel in a single direction since the beginning of the year: down.
The TPM Poll Average for a potential matchup with former state legislation Sharron Angle now shows Angle leading Reid by a margin of 45.3-39.6.
Against businessman Danny Tarkanian, Reid fares even more poorly. The TPM Poll Average for that race shows Tarkanian ahead of Reid by a margin of 50.5-38.3.
There is one piece of good news for Reid, however. A poll Monday showed that if the conservatives can’t unifiy behind a single candidate and end up splitting between the Republican nominee and a Tea Party candidate, Reid could eke out a narrow win. In that hypothetical contest, Reid won the three way race with 36% percent of the vote. The anonymous Republican nominee got 32% and an unnamed Tea Party candidate got 18%.
But hoping for conservative collapse so you can squeak by with a win by default is not exactly the desired position for a powerful Democratic incumbent like Reid. He still has a great deal of time — and a great deal of money — to try and turn things around in his reelection bid. But polling shows that it’s time for him to pull the rabbit out of the hat, whatever it may be. Each passing day seems to bring him closer to a career in lobbying like his predecessor as Democratic Majority Leader, Tom Daschle.
