Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/31-62. Likely voters. MoE 4% (4/26-28 results)
Republican Primary MoE 5%
Sharon Angle (R) 34 (13)
Sue Lowden (R) 25 (38)
Danny Tarkanian (R) 24 (28)
Ouch. These numbers are similar to Suffolk numbers released today. Sue Lowden was riding high, queen of the world against two little-known irrelevant opponents. Then she opened her flap, ranted on and on about chickens, took illegal gifts from her supporters, spent general election money illegally on the primary, and now she's en route to a third-place finish in next week's primary.
Angle is quite the nut, a female version of Rand Paul, and as she's risen among Republicans, the rest of the state has had a chance to check her out as well. And the results aren't pretty.
General Election
Harry Reid (D) 43 (41)
Sharon Angle (R) 37 (44)
Scott Ashjian (TP) 2 (5)
Harry Reid (D) 42 (41)
Sue Lowden (R) 38 (45)
Scott Ashjian (TP) 2 (4)
Harry Reid (D) 43 (41)
Danny Tarkanian (R) 39 (43)
Scott Ashjian (TP) 2 (6)
Favorable/Unfavorable
Reid (D) 40/52 (37/53)
Angle (R) 38/41 (41/29)
Lowden (R) 39/40 (42/34)
Tarkanian (R) 40/38 (44/33)
Nevada really wanted to fire Harry Reid. Then they took a gander at his opposition, and suddenly even he is looking pretty good in comparison.
But the April trend lines don't even show just how far the GOP field has fallen. Let's go back to our January poll of Nevada:
Harry Reid (D) 42
Sue Lowden (R) 51
Harry Reid (D) 41
Danny Tarkanian (R) 52
Reid (D) 34/55
Lowden (R) 45/26
Tarkanian (R) 48/31
Incumbents don't generally recover from those kind of numbers, and particularly so in an anti-incumbent year. Yet notice that Reid's numbers are little changed. It's the GOP's numbers that have fallen off a cliff. And one of them will emerge from the primary battered, bruised and broke, only to run into not just Reid's gazillions, but also with an agenda woefully out-of-step with Nevada.
I'll admit it -- I had written Reid off. But if there's a developing theme in this political season, it's the GOP's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And we can give the tea baggers a hearty and sincere "thank you" for doing the seemingly impossible -- making our bumbling Dems look good by comparison.