Thread by @JMilesColeman

RIP

The 2010 elections were during my first semester of college. I remember watching the returns on Election Night and seeing this image -- I jumped up and yelled at my (apolitical) roommate "HARRY REID WON!!"

I thought he would pull it out, but that he'd barely squeak by -- he ended up wining by almost 6 points, taking a majority of the vote.

This is a good video with some of his best and funniest lines.

My favorite:

Reid says "Brad Pitt was at the Capitol one day for an event. When they said to stand for pictures, I said "How are they gonna tell us apart?"

He usually had competitive races, but the easiest Senate contest he had was in 2004. Though he wasn't seriously challenged, Reid only lost the Cow Counties (the state minus Clark and Washoe counties) by 137 votes. Pretty impressive.

That 2004 race came 6 years after his closest race, 1998. He held off then-Rep. John Ensign by 428 votes. Nevada only had two districts then. Ensign represented NV-1 (the urban one), which Reid carried 55%-41% -- but Reid also kept NV-2 relatively close (within single-digits).

The 1998 race was essentially the genesis of the now-famous "Reid Machine," as @ZacMcCrary and @RalstonReports discussed in this podcast earlier this year.

https://twitter.com/ProPoliticsPod/status/1393220557752180740?s=20

Also, for some reason, I saved this image from the 2010 campaign.

Early in the cycle, Reid was down double-digits to Rs in some polls. Then Sue Lowden started talking about trading chickens for healthcare and Sharron Angle (a wacky, tea party R) started rising in the primary.

What I mean: at this point in the 2010 cycle (basically late 2009) it was looking *rough* for Reid. Then as the R primary began going off the rails, he posted leads in mid-2010.

uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/SENATE/2…

A few years after the 2010 election, I was watching a video with Penn & Teller (the magicians based in Las Vegas).

Penn says something like, "Yeah, Harry Reid is kinda a jerk, but his opponent was some lunatic who NO ONE could vote for."

Reid also knew when to retire, as the CCM handoff worked.

In the book Last Great Senate, Warren Magnuson, then 75 and running for a 7th term in 1980, struggled to shake donors' hands at a DC event. Edmund Muskie saw this and told a staffer "Don't let me stay too long like that."