Republican candidates have regained the lead in the races for Nevada governor and U.S. senator, according to a new independent poll.
The poll, conducted by Zogby International for the Wall Street Journal, put Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., ahead of his challenger, with 52 percent to Democrat Jack Carter's 40 percent. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dina Titus fell behind Republican Jim Gibbons, who had 47 percent to her 39 percent.
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A Zogby poll immediately after the Aug. 15 primary showed both races as dead even. That survey showed Titus slightly ahead of Gibbons, 47 percent to 44 percent, and Carter within striking distance of Ensign, 45 percent to 48 percent.
The more recent poll was conducted Aug. 29 to Sept. 5 by an online survey of 648 likely Nevada voters. It has a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.
Zogby spokesman Fritz Wenzel said both sets of poll results could be explained. Right after the primary, he said, voters on both sides rallied around their parties' candidates, while independents were split. But now that effect has faded, and the Republicans appear to be doing a better job of holding on to voters.
"The Democrats enjoyed an unusually strong bump in the polls" after the primary in Nevada, Wenzel said.
Also, the national political mood, seen as boosting the Democratic Party, has cooled somewhat. "A month ago, even two weeks ago, the Democrats nationwide were doing better than they are today," he said.
Gibbons campaign manager Robert Uithoven said he believed the polls to be correctly reflecting the direction of the race. "Our TV message is working, we're doing a good job of holding on to the Republican base, courting independents, and we even have about 10 percent of the Democrats," he said. "We hope to continue to grow those numbers and make sure Republicans show up to vote."
Both Democrats preferred to call attention to the polls' large swing and said they found it difficult to believe so many voters could change their minds in just a couple of weeks.
"As far as we're concerned, it's still wide-open, and anything goes," Titus spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said. "There are going to be a lot of these analyses and studies over the course of the campaign, and they'll all say different things. We think it's going to be a great race."
Carter spokesman Jay Jones said he was perplexed by the shift. "We have been all over the place in the polls," he said, pointing to pre-primary surveys that showed Ensign's lead at as little as 7 points or as much as 21 points.
"There's nothing, as far as we can tell, that has appreciably changed in the last two weeks in either direction," he said.
Both Gibbons and Ensign have blanketed television airwaves with commercials since the primary, and Carter has not been campaigning for more than a week because of an illness. Carter was still in intensive care Monday.
Ensign's campaign declined to comment on the poll.
Wenzel pointed to some of the poll's fine print to say what the Republicans are doing right. "The Republicans in both the race for governor and the race for Senate are having much more success than the Democrats in bringing the base home," he said.
Among Republicans, 88 percent said they would vote for Gibbons, while 80 percent of Democrats would vote for Titus. And when the Green Party candidate, Craig Bergland, was included, Titus lost 3 percentage points overall, putting her 11 points behind Gibbons.
Wenzel said the poll did not include Independent American Party gubernatorial candidate Christopher Hansen because Zogby was unaware of him.
Gibbons did well among women, 47 percent of whom said they would vote for him, versus 37 percent for Titus.
"That's unusual for a Republican candidate, especially one who's running against a woman," Wenzel said.
Ensign had a better hold on members of his own party: 91 percent of Republicans would vote for him, versus 83 percent of Democrats for Carter. "Ensign is well ahead among both men and women, people in cities and people in the country," Wenzel said. "If you lead in Las Vegas and you're a Republican, you're way ahead."
Carter did well among younger voters, those aged 18 to 29, "and that was a group that was very important to his father's presidential campaign," Wenzel said.
