Reid poised to remain majority leader

WASHINGTON - Sen. Harry Reid kept the Senate in session late on Sept. 21 to hold one final vote before recess, on a hunting bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

The vote was intended to boost Tester, who was in a close race for re-election in Montana. It also was emblematic of Reid's efforts to help Democrats stay in power and in the process keep his job as Senate majority leader.

"We're voting at midnight tonight because Harry Reid is getting a guy from Montana re-elected," Reid chief of staff David Krone said that day. "That says everything you need to know about Harry Reid and how he treats his party."

The Nevada leader contributed more than $265,000 to Democratic Senate candidates this year and raised hundreds of thousands more for them at fundraisers around the country.

Coupled with their success at recruiting strong candidates, and some Republican missteps, Democrats hit a payoff Tuesday night, retaining control of the Senate despite having to defend 23 seats, almost twice the seats held by the GOP.

"Harry Reid, I am proud to tell you, will be majority leader," Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Reid before they embraced in front of a cheering group of Democratic staffers and volunteers at an election party at the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel.

"This is what happens when your No. 1 goal is to defeat the president and not work to get legislation passed," Reid said, a few minutes after the networks declared President Barack Obama had won re-election.

Based on returns Tuesday night, Democrats were positioned to hold at least 52 seats in the two-year session that starts in January.

The election positions Reid, 72, to remain Senate leader for another two years. The Democrats' leadership election is set for Nov. 14.

The Nevadan would be commencing his fourth term as majority leader in January, more than Democratic senators and former leaders Lyndon Johnson of Texas (three terms, 1955-61), George Mitchell (three terms 1989-95) and Robert Byrd of West Virginia (three terms, 1977-81 and 1987-89 ).

Sen. Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., served eight terms as majority leader from 1961 to 1977. Sen. Alben Barkley, D-Ky., was leader for four terms and part of a fifth, from 1937 to 1947.

"Reid raised a lot of money" for colleagues and Democratic candidates, said Mark Peplowski, political science professor at the College of Southern Nevada. "He put a lot of pressure on a lot of money people to help out with various races."

Democrats also got a few breaks, Peplowski said.

"Credit goes to Todd Akin and Olympia Snowe, those two did a lot to help Harry achieve his majority," Peplowski said.

Snowe, a popular Republican senator from Maine, did not run for re-election, and her seat was captured by Angus King, an independent expected to side with the Democrats.

Many Republicans distanced themselves from Akin in Missouri after a controversy erupted in August.

He told an interviewer that pregnancy resulting from rape is rare because "if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." He lost to incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill.

In Indiana, Republican Richard Mourdock also self-destructed after suggesting last month that pregnancies caused by rape were something "that God intended to happen."