Reid grabs lead over Angle in latest poll

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) holds a seven-point lead over Republican challenger Sharron Angle in a poll released Friday.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal/Mason-Dixon poll shows that, if the election were held today, Reid would defeat Angle 44-37 percent. Ten percent of respondents were undecided and five percent did not choose a candidate.

Reid's lead comes after a week in which he slammed the Tea Party-backed Angle in a new television ad. The ad alleges that Angle would have opted to kill jobs in Las Vegas by killing a large construction project, and says she is too extreme.

In previous Mason-Dixon polls, Reid and Angle have been statistically tied, making this poll the first time the Democrat took the lead over the Republican. Here is more from the LVRJ:

He's had five perfect weeks," said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the survey. "The race has been all about her, and he's been doing a good job of pounding her."

Yet Coker said it's too soon to write off Angle. More than one-quarter of the nonpartisan swing voters who probably will decide the Nov. 2 election haven't jumped to the still-unpopular Reid but instead are undecided or in the "other" or "none of these candidates" columns, the poll showed.

"I wouldn't write her obituary just yet," Coker said, noting it's a long way to November. "Three and a half months is a lifetime, and at some point she's going to be able to start fighting back."

Reid and Angle were just about neck-and-neck in second-quarter fundraising, but Reid spent $3 million in television ads during that span, part of a flurry of spening against his opponent.

Angle's campaign has spent $656,773 and now has $1,767,671 cash on hand.

The poll surveyed 625 Nevadans between Monday and Wednesday. 

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