Reid Leads Angle
Via the Las Vegas Sun: Harry Reid hanging on to lead over Sharron Angle
When the numbers flashed up on the television screen that Reid was leading with 52 percent of the vote to Sharron Angle’s 43, the convention center ballroom exploded into applause — which turned into yelps and cheers as party attendees realized that 52 percent of precincts were reporting — a sharp jump in significance from the numbers that flashed up only 10 minutes earlier, showing a narrower, 8 percent lead with just 1 percent of the precincts reporting.
I find that to be a surprising gap, given the polling. Of course, by the same token, there are still a lot of votes yet to count.
CNN reports: Reid 51%, Angle 44% with 60% counted. None of these candidates is winning only 2%.
I am too old and have to get up too early tomorrow morning to hang on to see how this plays out, so we shall see in the morning if the tend holds.
At a minimum, the Senate appears to have remained in Democratic hands, although the margin is likely to be a fairly narrow one. More tomorrow, no doubt.
I was surprised that Reid pulled this one out. Independents broke to Angle, and even the Democratic Senatorial Committee started its “pro-Reid” ad with the words “It’s frustrating: you want to send a message to Washington but Sharron Angle?” i.e., “send a message to Washington” sounds a lot like “we realize we screwed up, please don’t fire us.”
Looking at CNN’s numbers ( http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2010/results/state/#NV ), though, a few things stand out: (1) Angle won Independents, so the idea that had she been more moderate things would have been different is a little weak; (2) women went for Reid; and (3) about 10% of Republicans in the end went for Reid. It’s that last point that caused Angle to lose the election.