Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Buyers Remorse for Nevada Republicans

If Nevada Republicans could do it all over again....they wouldn't, when it comes to nominating Sharron Angle. 68% of GOP voters in the state say they wish the party had nominated somebody different than Angle to run against Harry Reid last year while only 27% are still content for her to have been the candidate.

On one hand you could see this as an indication that voters in places like Colorado and Delaware and Nevada might really have buyers remorse about nominating candidates last year who weren't viable for the general election and that could hurt the prospects of Tea Party candidates in high profile races further down the road.

On the other hand Angle only got 40% of the vote in the primary so with 27% of Republicans overall still saying they're glad she was the nominee it would appear that a majority of her supporters don't really have any regrets about having handed her the nomination, even though it probably ultimately cost her party a Senate seat.

At any rate the 2010 election cycle is over and we'll move on tomorrow with 2012 Nevada Senate numbers looking at how John Ensign and Dean Heller do against Shelley Berkley, Oscar Goodman, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Ross Miller.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, DUH!
I wish that we had nominated someone other than McCain because he LOST!
The hindsight is so clear.

Unknown said...

I'm from California and I wish we nominated someone other than Wittman, Fiorina, Madonado, Cooley, et al because they all lost.

Anonymous said...

I would consider the two cases to be very different. McCain lost when practically any Republican candidate would have. By contrast, Angle lost an election that almost any other Republican would have won.

I wanted McCain as the Republican nominee in 2008. I'm a bit dissatisfied with the campaign that he ran, but I'm still happy enough with him as the nominee. If he were ten years younger, I'd consider him as a possible candidate for 2012.

I wouldn't vote for Angle in a primary for dog catcher.

It's also worth noting that these results don't reflect that big a change from what existed after the primary. Similar polls showed that a majority of Nevada Republicans opposed Angle's nomination. The post-election increase is more on the order of ten percent.

Christian Liberty said...

let's talk about how many democrats are experiencing remorse that they ever let such an arrogant, inexperienced punk as Obama be nominated. Democrats know that Obama WILL cost them the White House in 2012.

ANY Republican beats Obama in 2012.
If you don't see it yet...

Kelly Elizabeth Anderson Wright said...

50% of Nevada voted "Not Reid." 45% for Angle, 3% "None of the Above" and 2% for 6 lesser candidates. Considering how powerful Reid is, Angle did amazingly well for a Constitutional Conservative and clear Tea Party candidate. RINO Lowden was the Republican primary runner-up and clearly NOT what Nevada Republicans wanted, or we would have voted for her. As someone who knows Sharron Angle's politics and shares her political point of view, I was proud to see her do as well as she did. There is NO Republican candidate we could have put up who would have beat Reid this time around. 50% of the state clearly believed that Nevada could be WORSE than it already is. Fear is a powerful motivator, and Reid wielded it expertly.

Anonymous said...

You poll Nevada with Pennsylvania this week? Or this come from some old poll?

I think Angle was the strongest candidate what run against Reid. I think Lowden or Tarkanian would lose too.

Anonymous said...

A majority of Nevada Republicans voted against Angle in the primary. Angle was the first choice of a plurality of Nevada Republicans, but she doesn't seem to have been the second choice of any.

I say again that almost any other Republican would have won. Heller certainly. Lowden or Tarkanian almost as definitely. It's true that Angle out polled both in the primary, but that seems to have been because they split the vote. With Condorcet or IRV scoring, Angle would not have won the primary (although they might have helped her in the general).

Sandoval beat Rory Reid, despite trying to replace a Republican incumbent. It's clear that voters were willing to vote for a Republican over a Democrat named Reid. Reid didn't win the election. Angle lost it.

I don't know that the losing candidates in California mattered. They were at a historic moment. Clearly, split government hasn't been working in California. The easiest way to address that was to vote Democrat. Voters recalled Davis but forgot to recall the legislature.

Two to four years from now, that dynamic might change. This year, I don't think that the California candidates mattered (although I still would have picked Tom Campbell over Fiorina). The Nevada and Delaware candidates did (perhaps Colorado too).

Unknown said...

I spent two days electioneering in Las Vegas for Joe Heck. People talked about their support of Dr. Heck and Brian Sandoval, but they talked about their opposition to Harry Reid. They were effusive in their opposition. Virtually no one expressed support for Angle. I'm sure Angle had her supporters and they probably were the 2nd district, where she lives. But in the 3rd district, Angle was none of the above.

Dustin Ingalls said...

"let's talk about how many democrats are experiencing remorse that they ever let such an arrogant, inexperienced punk as Obama be nominated. Democrats know that Obama WILL cost them the White House in 2012."

Um, I don't know a single Democrat who feels that way. Do you even know any Democrats?

"There is NO Republican candidate we could have put up who would have beat Reid this time around."

Then you're never going to beat him. This was the year for any Republican to win, and he was as good as dead before the primary.

"You poll Nevada with Pennsylvania this week?"

Yes, we said we'd be doing Nevada and the winner of the readership poll, which was PA.

Unknown said...

Christian Liberty...now there's an oxymoron...yeah...we may be dissatisfied with Obama, but that mainly because we don't march in lockstep like a bunch of Nazi's like republicans do. We tend to have our on minds and are capable of thinking for ourselves. We are tend to know the definition of things better, like what is fascism and what is socialism and that one can't be a fascist and a socialist or that a tea party is about unfair taxation, not personal greed and self centered selfishness. We are also able to realize that government can't stay out of medicare since it is a government program (that runs quite well despite republican claims to the contrary...)

The Interesting Times said...

Anonymous:
"McCain lost when practically any Republican candidate would have."

I don't necessarily agree. McCain ran an awful campaign. At several points it appeared that the "Straight Talk Express" had gone off the rails. He was running with a skeleton crew for some time. He refused to bring up Jeremiah Wright, perhaps the Republicans' best chance at painting Obama as out of the mainstream. To top it all off, he chose Palin for VP, the Democrats' best chance at portraying the Republican ticket as out of the mainstream.

I would say it isn't certain that another candidate who ran a better campaign couldn't have beaten Obama.

 
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