Rep. Jim Gibbons is the prohibitive front-runner in the race for Nevada governor, according to a new Review-Journal statewide poll of voters.
The poll shows that the Republican congressman probably would take 50 percent of the primary or the general election vote if either contest were held today. Republican state Sen. Bob Beers comes off as the weakest of the five gubernatorial candidates in the poll, which surveyed 625 Nevadans who said they regularly vote in state elections.
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"Nothing's really changed in the big picture since we started tracking these races a year ago," said Brad Coker, managing partner of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., the Washington, D.C.-based firm that conducted the survey April 3 through Wednesday. "Gibbons is still by far the strongest Republican, and he still beats all the Democrats."
Of 268 poll respondents who said they were registered Republicans, 51 percent said they would vote for Gibbons in the primary. Fifteen percent were for Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, and 11 percent favored Beers. Twenty-three percent of Republicans were undecided.
"It's always good to be over 50 percent," University of Nevada, Reno, political scientist Eric Herzik said. "That's where you want to be."
Herzik said the poll should be comforting to Republicans, especially Gibbons, and troubling to Democrats, who will have to navigate considerable obstacles to make headway.
"These results should make Republicans breathe a sigh of relief," he said. "For all the negative publicity Republicans have faced recently, these numbers are pretty good."
But one Republican won't be happy, he added. "These are really bad numbers to Bob Beers. With four months to go, he's still barely in double digits, and he doesn't have the money to take on Gibbons in a media campaign."
The problem, Herzik said, is that even conservative voters who know and like Beers' anti-tax stances don't see a reason to vote against Gibbons. "Bob Beers has been trying to paint Jim Gibbons as a big-spending liberal, but voters remember the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative," he said.
The Beers campaign countered that it's still early in the game, and 60 percent of those polled either didn't recognize Beers' name or didn't have an opinion of him.
"Right now, Congressman Gibbons is riding on name (identification)," Beers campaign manager Andy Matthews said. "He has an advantage there because he's spent so much time in the spotlight. But over the next four months, we're going to get our message out, and we'll see that gap close and eventually disappear."
Gibbons also beat both Democratic candidates by double digits when voters were asked about hypothetical general election matchups. The voters chose Gibbons over State Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, 50 percent to 33 percent. Gibbons was the favorite over Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, 44 percent to 30 percent.
"These numbers aren't a whole lot different than a year ago despite the fact that we've had four candidates taking shots at us for the last year," Gibbons campaign manager Robert Uithoven said. "Jim Gibbons has been able to weather all that."
A Review-Journal poll in May 2005 had Gibbons taking 60 percent of the primary vote, while another in October gave him 53 percent.
There were hints of good news for Gibson in the poll, Coker said. It showed him improving slightly against Titus since the October survey and doing a bit better against Gibbons in the general election.
"His name recognition went up a little bit, and his numbers improved a little bit against Dina Titus, but not a lot," Coker said of Gibson. That, he said, was probably because "Gibson had just gotten into the race the last time we polled," and voters have had a chance to get to know him now.
The Democrats' dilemma is that, although Titus is positioned to win the primary -- the poll has her ahead by 10 points -- she wouldn't fare as well as Gibson in the general election. Herzik sees an opening for Gibson but thinks he must move aggressively.
"This should be yet another wake-up call for Gibson," Herzik said, noting that 65 percent of voters said they either had a neutral view of Gibson or didn't recognize his name. The fact that Gibson brought Gibbons' numbers lower than Titus did indicates that voters whose minds might be closed to Titus still are giving Gibson a chance but don't know much about him, Herzik said.
"Gibson needs to get out there," he said. "I don't think Dina Titus' support is really deep, but he has to get going with a message for the red-meat Democrats."
The problem for Titus, Herzik said, is that she can be a polarizing candidate. "Almost as many people dislike her as like her," he noted.
Asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Titus, 29 percent said favorable and 21 percent unfavorable. Comparable numbers for Gibson were 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively, giving him what analysts call a better "spread."
In other matchups, Gibson tied a race against Hunt, while Hunt defeated Titus in a one-on-one matchup.
"One thing that's consistent across several polls is that Senator Titus has really high negatives," Gibson spokesman Greg Bortolin said. "We feel it's virtually impossible for her to get to 50 percent in the primary."
Titus retorted that she could beat Gibson, noting that she has come out ahead of him in every poll. As for the general election, she said she would address Gibbons when he was her opponent.
"Nobody has yet held Jim Gibbons accountable for his record in Washington. He's just been coasting," Titus said. "When we start calling him on the votes he's cast against seniors, minorities and children, the numbers will shift."
Herzik called Hunt "the invisible candidate."
Hunt's camp responded to the poll by questioning its accuracy, saying Mason-Dixon was unreliable.
"You've got to wonder who they called and what they asked," Hunt campaign manager Frank Roberson said. "There's something wrong here. If all the polls said Gibbons had a 36-point lead, that would be one thing," but other polls show a closer contest.
The poll sampled 268 Republicans, 257 Democrats and 100 nonpartisans. Four hundred interviews were done in Clark County, 125 in Washoe County and 100 in rural Nevada. Female respondents slightly outnumbered the men.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points when all voters were surveyed. For the primary questions, the margin of error was 7 percentage points.
