NEVADA - REMEMBER TO WATCH DEAN HELLER IN THE SENATE

Nevada Senate Race Rating: Favors Republican

On May 17, 2011, in Senate Races, by Eric Odom

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

In 2006 then Republican Incumbent Senator John Ensign fought off an onslaught of Republican losses and held the Nevada Senate seat with 55% of the vote. Now that Ensign resigned, opening the way for Dean Heller to be appointed and begin mounting a big Senate campaign to keep the seat in 2012, the chances of Republicans holding the seat are decent.

Many pundits believe the race could lean towards Democrats, but I find that possibility less likely. I don’t believe it will be an easy seat to keep for Heller, but I believe his chances are higher to keep it than the Democrat chances are of taking it.
First, a lot of analysts point to the 2010 Senate race as a reliable measuring tool of what will happen in 2012. I don’t agree with this as a legitimate measuring tool for a couple of reasons.
1) Sharron Angle has never won statewide office
2) Sharron Angle couldn’t even win in a primary for CD2 (2006), which includes all of Nevada outside of Las Vegas (it did before the new districts were drawn anyway…)
3) Sharron Angle was rejected by even her strongest counties, meaning she just doesn’t have the ability to win over voters and Harry Reid took advantage of this
4) In 2010 it was all about Harry Reid, the powerful Senate Majority Leader
Dean Heller provides for a completely different scenario. He served Nevada as Secretary of State for three terms (statewide election/statewide office), he won the race for CD2 in 2006, 2008 and 2010 with a strong showing, and he’s pretty popular across the board.
Now that he’s been appointed to the Senate seat, Heller has the help of incumbency, the NRSC and the power of statewide Senate infrastructure.
Furthermore, I don’t see Obama pulling the kind of numbers he had in in 2008. Nevada is in a devastating situation financially and long gone are the days of blaming Republicans. If a strong candidate for POTUS comes out of the GOP primary, Republicans should have strong numbers at the polls and this will have profound effect on the Senate race.
Our ratings could most certainly change over the next year and a half, but right now it looks like Dean Heller has a slight advantage going into 2012.
CampaignTrailReport.com has the Nevada Senate race as “Favors Republican.”