October 12, 2009, - 2:49 pm
Senator Tark the Shark Jr.?: Harry Reid Trails Top GOP Opponents
For those of us tired of uber-liberal Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), we may not have to be annoyed too much longer, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Polls show Reid trailing both of his leading Republican challengers. And the same polls have shown this consistently since August. If the elections were held today, or at any time since July, Reid would lose.
Tark Family: Jerry Tarkanian, Mrs. Tarkanian, Danny Tarkanian
Even more exciting is the fact that one of his top viable challengers is Danny Tarkanian, a successful real estate investor and developer. If his last name sounds familiar, it’s because his dad is “Tark the Shark,” legendary former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian. Tark the Shark, Jr. doesn’t have as wide a lead on Reid as Sue Lowden, the other leading Republican and former chairwoman of the Nevada Republican party. But I like Tark. He’s the more exciting of the two candidates and not a GOP insider, which always makes a candidate more attractive in my book. He’s actually done something for a living, other than being part of the clubby GOP Gossip Girl contingent. Tark’s negatives, in my view, can be attributed to negative press coverage of his father’s tenure at UNLV’s hoop operation. And those can be overcome. Tark the Shark, Jr. is only growing in popularity.
A good percentage of voters are undecided, but I bet the way things go, they skew Republican when all is said and done. There’s still a way to go, but with Reid this unpopular this far from election day, I don’t expect he’ll recover.
More:
Nevadans say they’re ready to replace longtime Democratic incumbent Sen. Harry Reid with an untested Republican.
Which Republican? Undecided.
But of their top two picks — former GOP party official Sue Lowden and real estate developer Danny Tarkanian — either one would unseat Reid if the election were held today, according to a poll commissioned by the Review-Journal.
Lowden and Tarkanian are in a statistical tie atop a list of nine primary candidates, according to the survey of Nevada registered voters.
The poll by Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. shows 23 percent of Republicans favored Lowden to 21 percent for Tarkanian with 44 percent undecided. . . .
Tarkanian consultant Jamie Fisfis said he thinks Tarkanian is leading Lowden.
“They don’t jibe for me,” he said of the Mason-Dixon results depicting a statistical tie in the primary. “Lowden has received a small announcement bump, but we have maintained our lead.”
Fisfis said the campaign took an automated poll of more than 1,100 people while the Mason-Dixon pollsters were also making calls.
That poll didn’t include as many candidates and showed Tarkanian leading Lowden by 8 percentage points, Fisfis said.
If I were to put money on who will be the new Senator from Nevada, come November 2010, I’d bet on Tark.
Hmmm . . . I wonder what the Vegas line is in the race.
Tags: challengers, Danny Tarkanian, Harry Reid, Harry Reid losing, Harry Reid Trails, Jerry Tarkanian, Mason Dixon Poling and Research, Mason-Dixon Poll, Nevada, poll, polls, real estate, Republicans, Tark the Shark, U.S. Senator
Three factors could make it like 1994 next year: Obama’s unpopularity, the Democrats’ penchant for misreading their mandate last year and a tanking economy. None of this is necessarily a vote for the Republicans. It may be more of a typical mid-year throw the bums out protest vote and the Democrats are vulnerable now simply because there are more of them than Republicans and they have more seats to defend. And they must run trying to defend the record of the President of their own party. Even with a sycophantic media on their side, history is against them – mid-terms usually favor the party out of power. The exceptions to the rule were in 1934, 1998 and 2002.
NormanF on October 12, 2009 at 3:10 pm