Incumbents have a lot of obvious advantages when running for re-election. House and Senate Incumbents from rural states have an added advantage - the ability their seniority gives them to earmark federal money for their otherwise less-priviledged district or state. So a Senate incumbent from a rural state who is his party's leader in the Senate would appear to be in great shape, right?
All of those qualities didn't help then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota against the younger and far more conservative John Thune in 2004. And they don't appear to be helping current Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid with his constituents in Nevada.
As Reid's re-election year gets closer, he finds himself in serious trouble. A new Mason-Dixon poll shows Reid having only a 38% approval rating. According to the poll, in hypothetical matchups, he trails businesswoman and former GOP official Sue Lowden 51%-41% and attorney Danny Tarkanian - son of former UNLV men's basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian - 48%-42%. The margin of error was 4%.
Harry Reid certainly hasn't helped his cause any by being unable or unwilling to crack the whip on the more conservative members of his caucus and keep them in line, a flaw that has been glaringly obvious with the health care reform debate. When you have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and the Presidency and still have a hard time getting your party's legislation passed, people are going to think you're a weak leader. A lot of progressives believe that Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or Dick Durbin (D-IL) should have been appointed Majority Leader, but both of the major parties put a lot of emphasis on pure seniority for their leadership positions. And Reid is in his fourth term in the Senate.
A lot of Dems probably won't cry too much if Reid gets beat next year. But if a party's leader in the House or Senate gets beat, it portends a very bad election for that party. Then House Speaker Tom Foley was ousted in 1994, and the Democrats lost 53 other House seats and 8 Senate seats to surrender both the House and the Senate to the Republicans for the first time since 1954. When Daschle lost in 2004, the Republicans also picked up three other Senate seats and saw George W. Bush be re-elected President.
Reid will be one of the Republicans' biggest targets next year.
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