Marshall is good at math, but this problem is hard to solve

By Jon Ralston

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 | 2 a.m.

There remains only one really interesting question about the House special election in two months, and it has nothing to do with whether Kate Marshall lost $50 million as treasurer or whether Mark Amodei loved taxes and public-employee unions as a legislator.

The only conundrum worth solving: Can Marshall become the only Democrat in the 30-year history of the 2nd Congressional District to get elected?

My answer, based on a quarter-century of unerring soothsaying and a lifetime membership in the Pundits Club of America: Not likely.

Yes, Marshall could win — she is a ferocious campaigner, a smart woman and as competitive as they come. But she is up against history and math. Her only hope is a combination of Amodei missteps, Democratic turnout superiority and independent-voter defections.

Let’s parse.

• The math problem: Only two Democrats have ever come reasonably close — Pete Sferrazza in 1992 and Jill Derby in 2006. For most of the district’s three-decade history, the Democrats haven’t bothered to field viable candidates and GOP landslides have been the norm.

The growth in Washoe County and the Democratic registration push across the state has made the district slightly less conservative over the years. The GOP today has a negligible registration edge (2,000 voters) in the northern urban area of the district, which represents 54 percent of CD2, and an even smaller advantage in the southern urban area (1,300 voters), which is only 8 percent of the district.

But the rest of the sprawling CD2 is so overwhelmingly Republican — with a 30,000-vote edge in rural Nevada — and so conservative that it is a black hole for most Democrats. Derby defeated Heller in Washoe by 5 percentage points and still lost the race. In the last presidential year, Barack Obama crushed John McCain by 121,000 votes in Nevada, but he lost in the rurals by 25,000 votes. Last year, Harry Reid lost to Sharron Angle by 27,000 votes in the Democratic black hole.

Marshall does not have the luxury of building a huge lead in populous Clark County, as Obama and Reid did. So how does she survive the hemorrhaging in the rurals? She probably doesn’t.

• The Reid factor: This one cuts both ways. Reid is reviled in much of CD2 and while many held their noses to vote for him and against Angle, Marshall will not get so lucky. Amodei, a moderate who voted for taxes, is no Angle. That’s why Republicans try to tie Marshall to Reid so often. We will see a commercial with Marshall and Reid together. Maybe a few.

But the Reid machine — aka the Democratic Party — helped the senator win Washoe by 5 percentage points over Angle. If turnout is low on Sept. 13 — or lower than a normal House election — Washoe could become an even greater percentage of the overall vote and help Marshall. The Reid machine will help Marshall because of the message her victory would send nationwide, but that may not offset the Reidhate coursing through the cow counties.

• The national atmospherics: The district’s 60,000 nonpartisans could be affected by what happens on the coming debt relief deal. So, too, could moderates in both parties, although there are not a lot of those animals roaming rural Nevada.

The president is unpopular in the district. But the possibility that Republicans will misplay their hand, allowing Democrats to scare seniors about Medicare and Social Security, is one of Marshall’s only hopes.

In a recent Web video, Marshall cleverly hides her party registration and essentially says she is different from the nincompoops on Capitol Hill. That’s a message designed to take advantage of the budget gridlock and appeal to swing voters. It’s a long shot — I think her party registration eventually will be revealed — but it’s about her only shot.

There are more minor factors to consider. All the state GOP has to do is follow the political Hippocratic oath: Do no harm. So far the local and state Republicans have been goofy, essentially accusing Marshall of not having the clairvoyance of a Michael Lewis real-life character and of not knowing Lehman Bros. would fail.

Amodei is following a similar principle, trying mightily not to take a position on anything and hoping the inexorable demographics are enough. They should be.

The race is being watched nationally, so the headline probably will ripple across the country: “Amodei defeats Marshall, reinforces unpopularity of Obama/Democratic agenda.”

But if the Democratic nominee were to win, this headline would reverberate nationally: “Marshall upsets Amodei, shows Democrats path to 2012 victories.”

Could that happen?

Not likely.

[email protected] / 870-7997 / @ralstonflash