Harry Reid Republicans

Reader Michael Reynolds passes along a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal‘s Ed Vogel:

Preliminary figures show just 2,000 more Democrats than Republicans voted in Nevada’s general election, the secretary of state’s office said Monday.

Because there were 60,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans at the time of the election, the figures are a clear indication that many Republicans cast votes for Democrat U.S. Sen. Harry Reid rather than for his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, a secretary of state spokeswoman said. Reid, the Senate majority leader, defeated Angle by 41,424 votes in the election, although final polls conducted by the Review-Journal and others had projected a narrow Angle victory.

He even defeated Angle in Washoe County, where there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. In fact, 8,190 more Republicans than Democrats voted in Washoe County, and Reid still received 7,207 more votes there than Angle, said Pam Dupre of the secretary of state’s office. In Clark County, Reid defeated Angle by 60,101 votes, although the figures released Monday show only 38,606 more registered Democrats than Republicans cast votes there.

Now, there were also tens of thousands of independents voting*, so it’s not like Republicans who couldn’t stomach Angle provided Reid’s margin of victory.  But every Republican vote for Reid is essentially two votes, taking one away from Angle.

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*Statewide figures haven’t been released but there were 60,756 “nonpartisans” in Clark County alone and another 17,175 in Washoe County.

FILED UNDER: 2010 Election, US Politics, , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. It’s pretty easy to tell that there were at least a fair amount of Republicans who, even if they didn’t vote for Reid, likely went NOTA. Which means that even Republican voters want nothing to do with batshit crazy.