Mark Z. Barabak: How labor and a wily senator turned Nevada blue — and redrew the nation's presidential map
LAS VEGAS — Harry Reid had a hard life that took him from poverty in the Nevada desert to the height of power on Capitol Hill. Along the way, he could reliably count on one thing: tough election fights.
He lost one U.S. Senate contest by 624 votes. He won another by less than .01%.
"I should have lost that race," Reid told Jon Ralston, author of an upcoming biography, after being reelected to the Senate in 1998 by just 401 votes.
He vowed never to let that happen again.
And so Reid, cunning and ruthless in equal measure, leveraged his enormous clout and fundraising muscle to turn Nevada's creaky state party into a campaign juggernaut.
He not only won a fourth term in 2004, but prevailed after another brutal campaign six years later. In the process, Reid pushed Nevada to the fore of the presidential nominating process and helped turn the state from reliably red to a purplish shade of blue.
Nevada remains a campaign battleground and will be hotly
