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Reid to Begin Airing First Campaign Ads

Sen. Harry Reid (D) is beginning to dip into his $8.7 million campaign war chest, airing two television ads starting Friday to reintroduce the increasingly unpopular Majority Leader to Nevada voters.The ads, titled “Nevada Jobs— and “Hard Work,— emphasize Reid’s Silver State roots and his ability to use his clout in the Senate to help his home state. The tag line in both: “Determination that makes a difference.—The Reid campaign noted in a release announcing the ad launch that “approximately one third of all registered voters— in Nevada are new to the state since Reid’s last election in 2004 and framed the ads as an introduction for those new voters.But recent polls show that Reid’s problem is not that he is not well-known, but that what Nevada residents know of the four-term incumbent, a majority of them don’t like. A Mason-Dixon Polling & Research/Las Vegas Review-Journal poll released over the weekend showed that half of the voters polled said they held a negative opinion of their senior Senator, compared with 38 percent who viewed him favorably. And Reid continues to trail two relatively unknown Republican candidates — former state Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden and real estate developer Danny Tarkanian — in hypothetical general election matchups.Reid is hoping that his seniority and leadership post, as well as the resources to air ads emphasizing those traits early and often, will compensate for the lack of warmth that voters feel for him. But Republicans have the Senate race down as one of their top 2010 targets and, together with outside conservative groups, are expected to counter Reid’s spending with millions of their own.The Republican National Committee is running a radio ad Thursday and Friday in the Reno media market to coincide with Vice President Joseph Biden’s Nevada visit and Friday fundraiser for Reid.

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