Senator John Ensign (R-NV) may be ready to run for office again, but his own party’s voters may be ready for someone new. In a PPP poll released today, Ensign gets no love from Republican voters, 41% of whom said he shouldn’t even run for reelection, versus a marginally better 42% who say he should run again.
In hypothetical primary matchups, Ensign’s reelection prospects look even grimmer. Among the seven candidates posited in the poll, Ensign came in second at 20%, 10 points behind Rep. Dean Heller’s 30%, but well within striking distance for the other contenders in the crowded field. Rounding out the top five were two failed candidates for the party’s 2010 Senate nomination, Sue Lowden (12%) and Danny Tarkanian (10%), and the GOP Senate nominee, Sharron Angle (9%.)
Also troubling for Ensign, he fared even worse in a one-on-one contest with Heller, trailing in that mathcup 52% to 34%.
Even if Ensign won the primary, he would still be hard pressed to retain his seat in a general election. Another PPP survey released last week showed Ensign trailing every Democratic challenger thrown against him, while Heller held large leads against each of those same Democrats.
Ensign has been weighted by ethics scandals since he admitted two years ago to having an affair with a top aide’s wife. His mistress and her family were paid $96,000, allegedly for them to go quietly away. That prompted the Federal Elections Commission and the Department of Justice to launch separate investigations, though they both ultimately dropped those cases for lack of evidence. Ensign is still being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee.
The PPP poll was conducted January 3-5 among 400 Nevada Republican voters. It has a margin of error of 4.9%.
