Nevada Senate Race Will Be Tea Party vs. Obama Showdown

LAS VEGAS (June 9) -- With the landslide victory of ex-Assemblywoman Sharron Angle as the Republican picked to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada is now officially host to the purest battle between the ideologies of the tea party and President Barack Obama.

Angle, who sat at a measly 5 percent in the polls in April before the national umbrella group Tea Party Express endorsed her and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into her campaign, garnered 40 percent of the GOP vote to crush one-time front-runner Sue Lowden by 14 points.

"Remember Ronald Reagan and his coalition of the willing?" Angle crowed in her acceptance speech. "Well, we have one and first among them is the Tea Party Express."

With that, there can be no doubt the race in this decidedly purple state where Democrats have a large registration edge and which President Obama won in 2008 is now the No. 1 test of whether the tea party movement has mainstream appeal. Even tea party leaders acknowledge that if Angle does not defeat Reid, the damage to their cause will be catastrophic.

"If Harry Reid pulls this out, it is a blow to the tea party movement, absolutely," said Judson Phillips, chairman of the Tea Party Nation, another umbrella group based near Nashville, Tenn., that claims 30,000 members and did not endorse a Nevada candidate. "It will hurt the morale, but it's more than that. So much of politics is perception. Right now, the tea party is perceived rightly or wrongly as a kingmaker in politics. If the tea party fails to deliver in Nevada regardless of who is the nominee, there will be a perception that the tea party movement has run its course and its power is fading."

So far, tea party activists have managed to engineer electoral upsets or altered the dynamics of races in Republican primaries. Most notably, they ousted Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, helped Rand Paul capture the GOP Senate nomination in Kentucky and chased Florida Gov. Charlie Crist out of the party. And they're giving Arizona Sen. John McCain a gut check of a primary.

But no place other than Nevada will host a contest this fall that matches up a genuine, rock-ribbed tea partier -- one who writes "conservative Republican" prominently on campaign signs -- against an incumbent Democrat who cannot run away from the Obama record.

Reid, as a Democratic leader, has been the congressional shepherd for passage of several of the Obama administration's most important and controversial efforts, including the stimulus packages, bank bailouts and health reform law. All of those were referenced by Angle in her jubilant victory speech last night.

"This is the test for the real reach of the tea party," University of Nevada at Reno political science professor Eric Herzik said. "Winning a multi-candidate primary is something very different than fashioning a winning coalition with the general electorate."

Angle's abrupt rise coincided with her endorsement from the Tea Party Express, the largest and wealthiest of national tea party groups. But Lowden also helped tremendously with a series of devastating stumbles, including her suggestion that people try bartering with doctors to reduce health care costs. The Republican mayor of Reno last month referred to Lowden as "Suicidal Sue."

In Angle, Tea Party Express leaders saw the ideological purity they sought, which also means they will spend the next five months learning whether that ideology is compatible with a mainstream electorate.

Among those who do not believe so is top Republican strategist Sig Rogich, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush. Rogich has argued for more than a year that Nevada cannot afford to lose the unprecedented national clout that its senior senator has brought to the state.

Rogich said Nevadans are also not as socially conservative as Angle, who told AOL News last month, "I'm not too far right; there's no such thing."

"I just think that people are becoming more tolerant on certain issues, and I don't think Nevadans by and large believe you should get rid of Medicare or that we should have a nuclear dump site here, as Sharron Angle has said," Rogich said. "People in this state would view those things as radical. ... I am supportive of the tea party movement, but I don't think getting rid of incumbents for incumbents' sake is the right answer."

Herzik agreed, noting that Reid's easiest re-election bid came in 2004 against anti-gay-marriage activist Richard Ziser. He also said that Reid "won't have to push very hard to find some very controversial conservative statements" that Angle has made over the years.

"She's said she's anti-Social Security, anti-Medicare, even anti-alcohol," Herzik said. "The latter one may seem like no big deal, but we're one of the highest-drinking states in the nation. She's a social conservative in a state built on gambling. We have legal prostitution, the bars never close. And now, Sharron Angle rolls out of the primary with maybe 40 percent of the GOP vote. That doesn't bode well."

Yet polls in the state have shown Reid stuck for more than a year at or below 40 percent in almost every theoretical candidate match-up -- including with Angle -- and with persistently poor favorability ratings. Nevada is facing its highest unemployment rate ever (13.6 percent in March) and has been the epicenter of the home foreclosure crisis, much of which will be laid at Reid's feet in the fall campaign, Tea Party Express spokesman Levi Russell said.

More important, Russell said, Nevadans will set aside some of their social disagreements with Angle and welcome her because of her clear anti-establishment, anti-Washington views -- especially when contrasted with Reid and the Obama administration he represents.

"This is the election that everyone has their eye on because it represents the old guard that is at least partly responsible for putting us in the mess we're in, versus the tea party values which are tried and true economic principles that have brought the nation a lot of prosperity," Russell said.

Still, jitters abound. Dissent among tea partiers in Nevada is increasing, as indicated by a slew of harsh e-mail exchanges reported by AOL News.

Angle refused to endorse her Republican rivals in her failed bids for state Senate and Congress because she felt they were too liberal. That makes Herzik and others wonder how she will be able to consolidate even the GOP base, let alone draw in moderates.

"Sharron has always taken the position of my way or the highway," third-place GOP finisher Danny Tarkanian told AOL News on Monday. "There's no room for discourse." Tarkanian offered a full-throated endorsement of Angle on Tuesday in his concession speech. Lowden also endorsed her.

Russell and Phillips agree that the outcome of this race will determine the future of the tea party, if only because of the predictable punditry that will result. Phillips' group didn't endorse in the race, but he said the fact that Russell's group did makes it even easier to cast the race in stark terms that could damage the movement.

"It doesn't matter what you say. It is the tea party versus Obama, and Harry Reid is the No. 1 target," he said.