Reid has plenty at stake in election

WASHINGTON — Sen. Harry Reid is not on the ballot this year, but few have more riding on the outcome of Tuesday’s elections than the majority leader from Nevada.

The results could determine the path forward for the veteran Senate leader in the autumn of a long career.

Surprise wins that enable Democrats to retain control of the Senate would raise Reid’s pedestal in the party and add to his legend as a strategist who helped Democrats gain control in 2006 and hold it, against the odds, in 2010 and 2012.

Reid would be expected to continue into his fifth term as the longest-serving majority leader since Sen. Mike Mans­field, D-Mont., who served eight terms in the 1960s and 1970s.

Life atop the Senate also would keep Reid, who turns 75 on Dec. 2, in the most power­ful slot on Capitol Hill if he seeks re-election in 2016, as he has been preparing to do.

But if Republicans take control after Tuesday, as many believe will be the case, the prism shifts.

Democrats would need to decide whether Reid should continue to lead them. While Republicans made Reid’s leadership a major issue in campaigns, many believe the Nevadan will retain the support of fellow Democrats and enter Congress in 2015 as minority leader — if he wants it.

In the minority, Reid would have far fewer levers to pull to influence the Senate’s schedule and the legislation it considers. He would find himself on more occasions playing defense to Republicans, much as he did when he was minority leader in 2005-06.

But Reid, as a wily old-timer in a legislative body that puts great premium on seniority and guile, would retain much of his personal clout.

That is even more the case with Reid ally President Barack Obama still in the White House, experts say. His administration is expected to help keep favors flowing to Nevada if Republicans in Congress don’t.

“If Harry Reid moves from majority to minority, let’s just say he’s not going to fall from his tall pedestal,” said Brad Fitch, president and chief executive of the Congressional Management Foundation that studies the workings of Capitol Hill.

LANDSCAPE TILTS TO GOP

Republicans are widely favored to gain a Senate majority on Election Day, given Obama’s unpopularity in states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Alaska and Colorado where Democrats are running for re-election, and states like West Virginia, South Dakota and Iowa, with open seats held by Democrats who are retiring.

Democrats are hoping the millions they invested in voter registration and get-out-the-vote operations will pay off in enough races to allow them to hang on.

Democrats, including the two independent senators who caucus with them, hold a 55-to-45 advantage in the Senate. The New York Times on Friday calculated Republicans have a 71 percent chance of gaining a majority, with the most likely scenario that the new Senate will hold 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats.

“While many races remain close, it’s just getting harder and harder to envision a plausible path for the Democrats to retain control of the Senate,” wrote Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and two of his editors of the Crystal Ball newsletter they produce.

A final tally might not be known until early next year. There may be a Dec. 6 runoff in Louisiana if neither incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu nor Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy gain 50 percent on Election Day. Georgia has set a Jan. 6 runoff if needed for Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue.

Reid has worked mostly behind the scenes on the fall campaigns.

As of late September, Reid had attended 116 meetings and fundraisers in 14 cities for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Senate Majority PAC. That superPAC is run by former Reid aides and has disbursed $44 million through Oct. 15, making it the biggest spender this cycle.

Reid deputy communications director Kristen Orthman said the Nevadan intends to lead the Democrats win or lose.

“Democrats will maintain their majority, but regardless, Sen. Reid will remain Democratic leader,” Orthman said. And, she said, “He is running for re-election in 2016.”

On “Meet the Press” on Oct. 26, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was asked: “Is Harry Reid bigger than the majority?”

Schumer, one of Reid’s deputies in the Senate leadership, responded that a leader­ship vote for the Nevadan would be “overwhelming.”

WILL REID BE BLAMED?

Insiders say it is only natural that senators will reassess the landscape after Election Day, where pre-election bravado may confront new realities.

In 2010, Reid won a tough re-election against Republican Sharron Angle. But elsewhere Republicans won four seats held by retiring Democrats and beat two incumbents. The gain of six seats was their largest pickup since 1994.

Facing a demand by rank and file for some response, Reid overhauled the Senate Democratic leadership to give Schumer an expanded role in shaping and broadcasting talking points.

This year, Schumer, mentioned most often as Reid’s successor, has signaled he remains loyal to the Nevadan and expects him to remain leader in the new Congress, according to sources cited by the Wall Street Journal.

Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University who has studied the Senate under Reid, does not believe the Nevadan will be blamed if Democrats lose.

“He already has been acclaimed as a hero for winning his own election in 2010, and for Democrats doing so well in 2012,” Baker said, adding Democrats “know he has done everything humanly possible to preserve the Democratic majority in the Senate” this year.

“If there were the usual sacrificial lamb in this case, it would not be the party leader, but the head of the campaign committee,” Baker said. “If Democrats have any complaint, they would be directing it at Michael Bennet. But I don’t think there will be a lot of resentment against Bennet either.”

Bennet, a senator from Colorado, was the party’s chief strategist and fund­raiser as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Reid throughout the year used his powers to block most amendments to Senate bills, a tactic designed to shield vulnerable Democrats from having to take provocative votes that would yield campaign attack ads.

The strategy infuriated Republicans. They turned redder still when Reid engineered a rules change limiting their ability to filibuster federal nominations. Reid said GOP senators were interested only in pressing amendments to embarrass Obama.

Jim Manley, a former Reid communications director, said Democratic senators recognize Reid “is there to protect each and every one of them.”

Reid might not get blamed, but Election Day setbacks could push Democrats into a period of self-reflection, said Eric Herzik, political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“You always have some tensions within the caucus,” Herzik said.

When Democrats were winning elections, “I don’t know if there were a whole lot of other Democrats ... willing” to take on the overtly partisan role that Reid filled, Herzik said.

“But when you lose, you lose the control and people are going to ask questions, whether it’s time to get a different face for the party.”

Baker believes Democrats will lick their wounds and look ahead to 2016, when the landscape looks more in their favor to recapture the majority.

Only 10 Democrats are up for re-election in 2016, compared to 24 Republicans. And it will be a presidential election year, with the promise of a more enthusiastic turnout by Democratic voters.

As for Reid being in the minority, “I don’t think he will like it much, but he will adjust to it with the understanding that it’s going to be temporary,” Baker said. “It’s a little like being exiled to the island of Elba if you’re Napoleon.”

Mark Peplowski, a political science professor at the College of Southern Nevada, had another take. He believes that Reid’s future lies outside the Senate.

“I’ve been telling my students that if Harry Reid loses the Senate this year, I anticipate within one year he will receive a plum appointment from President Obama to an ambassadorship somewhere, where he can retire for life and give up the Senate because he will no longer be the No. 1 man.

“He’s going to be the minority leader with both houses of Congress gone Republican and a president who is under siege,” Peplowski said. “After all he’s done for 32 years, do you want to go out with a whimper? And then he has to run against Sandoval in 2016?”

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval is expected to face heavy pressure from Republicans to run for the Senate against Reid. A GOP poll this summer gave him a 53 percent to 43 percent early advantage in a Reid matchup. If Sandoval protégé state Sen. Mark Hutchison is elected lieutenant governor Tuesday, Sandoval could run knowing the state leadership would remain in Republican hands

As minority leader, Reid’s job would change from managing legislation to playing defense against Republican initiatives and promoting Democratic alternatives, much as GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has done with Democrats controlling the chamber, Fitch said.

“If you are in the minority, it is as if you are a government in exile,” Fitch said. “The minority leader of the Senate still has a great deal of power.”

WHAT ABOUT NEVADA?

On Oct. 1, Reid stood in the North Las Vegas City Council chambers with Mayor John Lee and Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., as they all touted a $1.6 million federal grant to hire 13 police officers.

“You can speculate that (grant) was due to the fact we have a very powerful senator that happens to be in charge of the United States Senate,” said an official who was there.

Last week, the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County announced a $16 million federal grant for bus rapid transit that will smooth travel between Reno and Sparks. Reid was credited with helping the RTC write the grant and ensuring it got due consideration within the bureaucracy.

But the coming election has some Nevadans worried.

Reid has been the go-to guy for so many years whenever the casinos, miners, local governments, water authorities and transportation bodies need a line in legislation or a phone call or a letter to get something out of Washington — or to stop something out of Washington — that there is fear Democratic losses on Tuesday might signal tougher times ahead.

“Nevada is spoiled because Sen. Reid has always been there, but there is change coming,” one lobbyist lamented.

Lee Gibson, executive director of the Washoe RTC, said Reid has positive relation­ships with federal agencies, “so there will still be an ability to move things and get things done.”

But Reid also used his post as majority leader to push for transportation policies that helped the state and the West. Gibson said those might be reset under Republicans, “and I’m not sure it’s going to be a good effect.”

“I’ll be honest with you; but I know Republicans and Democrats throughout the state who are going to miss that, should the Senate flip and Reid become minority leader,” Gibson said.

Gibson said he has taken his concern to Reid aides. “They agree we are going to take some steps backward if the Senate flips in the development of public policy.”

Trepidation by some Reid allies is compounded by uncertainty whether he will follow through on declarations that he will run again in 2016, and how he might fare in a race where Republicans already have painted a bull’s-eye on his back.

Republicans already have declared they will push ahead with hearings and new attempts to resurrect the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project if they control Congress, a bid that draws a scoff from Reid.

“Yucca Mountain is gone,” Reid said earlier this month, saying the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas effectively has been mothballed and would take “billions and billions of dollars” to revive.

Herzik said Obama’s continued presence in the White House will cushion Reid over the next two years. With Congress no longer explicitly approving earmarks, most government largess these days is doled out directly by federal agencies, Herzik pointed out.

“On most issues for Nevada it won’t matter. You still have a Democratic president who owes Reid big time. And in Harry Reid you still have a senior senator who knows his way around the Senate.”

If anything, Reid might focus more on Nevada in anticipation of 2016, Baker said. “He’s very strategic. A lot of what you’ll see is Sen. Reid doing things that are going to position him better for a challenge from Sandoval.”

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.