EDITORIAL: Harry Reid’s very bad day

Tuesday could have gone worse for Harry Reid. The U.S. Senate majority leader could have been on Nevada’s ballot.

The most powerful elected official in state history suffered a stinging demotion in Washington and a historic wipeout of his Democratic Party at home in midterm elections. He won’t face voters until 2016, if he follows through on his promise to seek re-election to a sixth term. But whether he retains his office beyond then depends on whether he learns from this year’s red wave.

The unpopularity of President Barack Obama, Sen. Reid and the biggest albatross of their partnership, Obamacare, was reflected in Tuesday’s votes, which gave Republicans big wins everywhere, at every level, and flipped control of the U.S. Senate to the GOP. Voters fired four incumbent Democratic senators who voted for Obamacare and elected Republicans in three states where the Democratic incumbent retired rather than pay the price for supporting the Affordable Care Act. And Republicans are poised to pick up another Senate seat next month: Democrat Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who Sen. Reid famously bought off to secure Obamacare’s passage, is expected to lose a runoff to the GOP’s Bill Cassidy.

The burdens and broken promises of Obamacare — the new costs, policy cancellations and economic drag — have been especially harmful to Democrats because Sen. Reid gave his slate of candidates almost nothing else to run on. He has all but shut down the Senate, refusing to work with the Republican-controlled House on policies that have bipartisan support, and letting House-passed bills pile up on his desk to protect Democrats and the president from votes that would have made them even more vulnerable.

Instead of providing leadership, Sen. Reid spent much of his energy railing against billionaire philanthropists Charles and David Koch, suggesting their contributions to political advocacy groups were undermining American democracy. Meanwhile, liberal super PACs, led by the Reid-allied Senate Majority PAC, were raising more money and making more independent expenditures than any conservative outfit. Sen. Reid hates outside spending — unless it’s his outside spending.

But there was no saving his majority. And because Sen. Reid was so focused on candidates in other states, the turnout machine he built in Nevada for himself and President Obama was never switched on. He failed to recruit a suitable challenger to popular Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, and he alienated his labor base by — you guessed it — bending them over the Obamacare barrel.

And so, with Democrats staying home and sinking statewide turnout to a pathetic 45 percent, Nevada turned red Tuesday. Republicans swept all six statewide constitutional offices, seized control of both houses of the Legislature and took out every rising star the Democrats put on the ballot.

Sen. Reid has staged epic political comebacks before, and we don’t doubt he’s capable of doing it again. But Nevada and the rest of America are tired of his politics of deflection, distraction and dysfunction. Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, and Sen. Reid bears a lot of the blame.

Regardless of whether Democrats retain him as their Senate leader, Sen. Reid should change his approach. No more partisan red herrings. Offer substantive ideas related to the issue Americans care most about: the economy. If Sen. Reid, the president and Congress can’t do better, more bad days await.