Three of a Kind in Nevada Politics

LAS VEGAS (Dec. 9) -- Nevada has drawn three of a kind, but not the sort that generally produces celebration in these parts.

All three of the state's top officeholders are extraordinarily unpopular, leaving political experts hard-pressed to remember a time when both U.S. senators and the governor were held in such low regard by the electorate simultaneously.

"I can't think of another state like this," said Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report. "There are a lot of bad numbers around the country, particularly sitting governors in New York and California, but this is really remarkable."

Each scorned politician has a different set of problems. A closer look:

-- Gov. Jim Gibbons. The married, first-term Republican squeaked out a victory in 2006 despite allegations, later dismissed, by a cocktail waitress that he attacked her in a parking garage weeks before the election. His wife stood by him only to be served divorce papers in May 2008. That messy case could go to public trial this month. The first lady has accused the governor of multiple affairs, including one with a woman whom a Reno newspaper learned he had text-messaged 860 times in one month on his state-issued mobile phone. Beyond his personal drama, Gibbons has been the most impotent governor in the state's history, with a record 41 vetoes overridden by the legislature this year. The governor had a 17 percent favorable rating in a poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week, an improvement from his 10 percent showing in July.


-- U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. The Democratic Majority Leader vies next year for a fifth term despite a persistently low 38 percent favorable rating in successive Review-Journal polls taken in October and last week. Reid is not embroiled in any personal scandals but sets off political firestorms on a regular basis, including this week's kerfuffle in which he equated health insurance reform opponents to pre-Civil War anti-abolitionists. Moreover, because of Reid's role as shepherd of President Barack Obama's agenda, voters here see him as a highly partisan figure concerned more about the party than his state.

-- U.S. Sen. John Ensign. The married, religious, conservative Republican admitted in June that he had an affair with a campaign aide who was also the wife of his best friend and chief of staff. The cuckolded husband, Doug Hampton, has resurfaced several times since June with new, damaging information about Ensign's conduct, including evidence of a $96,000 payoff Hampton received from the senator's parents when he was fired. As a result, Ensign's favorable rating fell to 23 percent in the latest Review-Journal, taken in October. In July, even after the start of the scandal, 75 percent of Nevadans rated Ensign's job performance as excellent, good or fair. A Senate Ethics probe is under way.

All three are what political experts call "upside down," meaning more voters disapprove of them than approve of them. And while it may be coincidental that they have had their unique problems at the same time, the distaste also comes in a state facing record unemployment and the nation's highest home foreclosure rate.

"Is it something about Nevada? Maybe," said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at University of Nevada at Reno. "There's a distinct anti-government streak in Nevada politics, so politicians already have an uphill battle. Add in a bad economy and that magnifies any personal flaw."

Herzik noted that the trio represents both parties, implying to him that the penchant for disgust in the Silver State is not partisan. Nevada is decidedly purple. The state has elected only one Democrat -- Reid -- as either governor or senator since 1994, even though there are about 80,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.

Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston, the state's foremost political pundit, believes Gibbons, Ensign and Reid face separate problems not attributable to broader circumstances or characteristics. Still, a better economy would smooth over a lot.

"If the economy were better, Gibbons would be slightly better, and it's possible Reid would not be upside down, but Ensign's problems have nothing to do with the economy," Ralston said. "He's just proven himself to be an enormous hypocrite, and I don't see how he recovers from that."

Reid could survive his re-election bid next year, despite what Ralston called "disastrous" numbers. Reid is known as a tenacious, if not terribly personable, campaigner with a huge war chest. He has lined up several prominent Republicans to campaign for him on the premise that a small state like Nevada would be foolish to replace the nation's most powerful senator with a freshman in the minority party.

Gibbons, too, has a path -- narrow though it is -- to survival, said Steve Sebelius, editor and columnist for the weekly Las Vegas CityLife. The state's sinking sales tax revenues will likely force a special legislative session after Christmas, which could be an opportunity for Gibbons to shine.

"If Gibbons calls a special session and he stands there and tells the legislature to cut the budget and the legislature obliges him -- and what else will they be able to do? -- that could make him look like a real leader," Sebelius said. "It's not likely, but it is possible."

Sebelius pointed to another Nevada trait that may explain the peril all three men face: the state's rapid population growth and turnover. Reid, for instance, has been a fixture in Nevada politics for 40 years, but the state's population has tripled since 1980, producing little loyalty.

Newcomers have become familiar with Reid from the frequently critical articles about him in the local newspapers and are unfamiliar with the hardscrabble, up-by-the-bootstraps history that Reid uses to bolster his average-guy bona fides.

Indeed, Sebelius notes that rather than engendering a reservoir of good will, Reid is creating a nightmare scenario for his son, Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid, who is the leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

"Rory Reid has never done anything to earn his high negatives," Sebelius said, referring to the younger Reid's 23 percent favorable rating. "The only reason is because of his father. He's bequeathing his own unpopularity to his son."