Today's
Las Vegas Sun reported an independent poll by Garin Hart Yang of the Nevada Governor's race that shows
democratic nominee Dina Titus even with republican Jim Gibbons:
Titus 46, Gibbons 45. Based on phone interviews with 600 LVs, MOE = 4.
This result would appear to confirm the Zogby/ WSJ poll that showed her leading 47-44. Both campaigns have publicly acknowledged that internal polling shows the race within MOE.
This is in addition to other good news for Titus this week.
Saturday began the state's statewide co-ordinated campaign field effort which, for first time in recent history, will include rural counties as well as Clark and Washoe. The goal is to move more registered dems to the polls statewide than even the presidential election of 2004.
By contrast, last Friday's state supreme court ruling removing TASC (tax and spending control initiative) from ballot (and stripping out key provisions of anti-eminent domain ballot issue) removes a key element of GOP/conservative turnout strategy. Furthermore, the state republican party has been riven by internal conflicts.
Finally, the oft-mentioned financial edge for Gibbons is dissipating. This week began an influx of Dem presidential hopefuls to NV helping her raise money; Warner last week helped raise >$70K (as reported in todays' Review Journal; Edwards and DGA Chair Richardson will be in NV in this coming week; Feindgold, Vilsack, Kerry, Clinton are to follow.
This, as well as the the polling noted above, have allowed her to raise her fudnraising goal to compete with Gibbons, whose campaign spent heavily on ads in August that many observers consider to have been effective.