With health reform, Reid faces political challenges on the Hill and at home in Nevada

Dec 1 2009

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is busy trying to gather all the Senate Democrats into supporting health care reform, Nevada Republicans are seizing on the opportunity to try to take control of his seat, USA Today reports. "it will be up to him to hold together all 60 members of his caucus ...The effort to corral them is putting the spotlight on Reid, who grew up poor and paid his way through law school by working nights as a policeman in the U.S. Capitol— where he now is trying to deliver on the president's top domestic priority. In the process, Reid hopes to avoid becoming the second Democratic leader in a row to be ousted by his home state voters. [Tom] Daschle lost his Senate seat in 2004 at the height of his power." 

"Five years ago, Reid comfortably won re-election to a fourth term. This time, he is trailing in the polls. He was running behind two potential Republican challengers in a recent Mason-Dixon poll for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and the non-partisan Cook Political Report rates his seat as a tossup in 2010. He's the GOP's No. 1 target this year. 'I was elected to take out Harry Reid,' said Chris Comfort, the new chairman of the Nevada Republican Party. 'That's my primary mission'"  (Kiely, 12/1).