Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's airwave offensive continued Friday with the launch of his fourth television ad of the 2010 campaign, a sign that despite his nonchalant attitude, the four-term Nevada Democrat is deeply concerned about his re-election chances.

The one-minute spot is the most direct yet in making what is Reid's central appeal: that his political clout is too valuable for the state to replace him.

"He's the most powerful senator Nevada has ever had," the ad begins, "And Harry Reid's working harder than ever to get Nevada's economy back on track." It goes on to list federal funds, tax credits and other pork projects Reid has delivered to the state.

After announcing he was including a "public option" for government-run health insurance in the Senate's health insurance overhaul bill, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid won a hearty round of accolades from progressive groups.

Now, one of the most prominent, MoveOn.org is following that up with a round of newspaper ads in Nevada and Washington D.C. lauding Reid for his "courageous leadership."

"We're standing with you in the fight for real health care reform with the choice of a public health insurance option," the full page ad will read. MoveOn send a note to is e-mail list Thursday asking backers to ad their names to those expressing thanks in the ad.

The support from MoveOn comes as Reid faces a tough re-election battle, with national Republicans gunning for his seat in 2010. And that stamp of approval could help him shore up support from the more liberal portion of the Democratic base, a constituency that has often been suspicious of the majority leader in the past.

NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh, in turn, has accused Reid of paying "more attention to the liberal special interests in Washington than to the interests of his constituents in Nevada."

MoveOn.org did not respond to a call for comment on details of the ad purchase.

CQ Politics rates the general election contest Leans Democratic.

Nearly a decade after leaving Congress, Nebraska Democrat Bob Kerrey is close to emptying a still-active campaign committee account that was in the seven figures even after he was no longer running for office.

Kerrey, who served in the Senate from 1989 through 2000 and is now president of The New School in New York City, gave a $120,000 charitable contribution in August to the University of Nebraska Foundation via his campaign committee, according to a third-quarter report recently filed with the Senate's public records office.

That six-figure donation for Kerrey's alma mater, along with a $4,000 contribution to the 2010 re-election campaign of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, left Kerrey's campaign committee with $25,000 in the bank.

It looks like progressive groups are trying to play a little good cop-bad cop routine with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., as they push for Senate Democrats to include a "public option" for government-financed insurance in their health care overhaul legislation.

Americans United for Change, a progressive non-profit group backed by labor union funding, announced a $23,000 radio ad campaign in Nevada Wednesday aiming to "cheer on" Reid as he fights to get "health care for all Americans - including a public option - this year."

The hope, Americans Untied for Change spokesman Jeremy Funk said in a statement, is that "by publicly reinforcing the efforts of the Senate Majority Leader," the group will "send a message to all Senators that advocates of health insurance reform will have their back in supporting the public option."

The ad is airing for a week on stations in Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.

The parents of Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., pitched in to help Democrat Harry Reid, the state's senior senator, in his 2010 re-election battle.

Mike and Sharon Ensign, who made waves in July after admitting to giving $96,000 to Ensign's mistress and her family, each gave the maximum $4,800 in contributions to Reid's campaign committee in the September, the Senate Majority Leader's campaign disclosed in its third quarter fundraising report.

Despite being on opposite sides of the partisan divide, Reid and Ensign have an unofficial non-aggression pact, and Reid has remained silent on his colleague's admission over the summer that he had carried on an affair with Cynthia Hampton, a staffer and wife of one of his top aides, Doug Hampton.

Harry Reid is beginning to dip into his $8.7 million campaign war chest, airing two new television ads starting Friday to reintroduce the increasingly unpopular Senate majority leader to Nevada voters.

The ads, entitled "Nevada Jobs" and "Hard Work," emphasize Reid's Nevada roots and his ability to use his clout in the Senate to help his homestate. 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 an introduction for those new voters.

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.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is hoping money can buy him love in Nevada. The four-term incumbent added another $2 million in receipts to his warchest as he prepares for re-election in 2010, his campaign announced Tuesday, giving him $12 million total in receipts for the election cycle and $8.7 million cash on hand.

Poll results from Mason Dixon and the Las Vegas Review-Journal over the weekend show that those millions could come in handy in what is shaping up to be the toughest race of his career. Reid continues to trail two relatively unknown Republican candidates -- former state Sen and former Republican party Chairwoman Sue Lowden and real estate developer Danny Tarkanian -- and half of the voters polled said they held a negative opinion of their senior senator, compared with 38 percent who view him favorably.

Neither Lowden nor Tarkanian have released third-quarter fundraising numbers. Lowden, who has personal wealth from the casino industry, officially launched her campaign Oct. 1, a day after the close of the third quarter, though she'd been raising money via an exploratory committee before that.

Sue Lowden, chairwoman of the Nevada's Republican Party until Wednesday, has officially entered the field of GOP candidates seeking to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his 2010 bid for re-election.

Lowden last ran for public office as a state senator in the mid-1990s.

She announced at the beginning of September that she would be resigning her party post to pursue a possible challenge to Reid, a four-term incumbent whose central role in controversial national policy debates has spurred a dropoff in his job approval ratings at home.

In a release sent out Thursday morning, Lowden's campaign said she will file the official paperwork to become a candidate. Her statement did not take aim at Reid explicitly, but did say that Nevada's current economic woes were the product of "an unresponsive, out-of-touch federal government."

The buzz is growing that former Republican Rep. Jon Porter is reconsidering an earlier decision to stay out of the Senate race against Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010.

Chuck Muth, a longtime Republican operative in the state, said the word in Nevada GOP circles is that "Jon Porter is seriously talking about wanting to get into this race, after all."

Jon Porter (Getty Images/Ethan Miller)

Porter ruled out a challenge to Reid in June, but the lure of recent poll numbers showing Reid trailing several relatively unknown GOP challengerss are apparently proving hard to resist.

"He absolutely is talking to the folks at the senatorial committee and some money people," to see if there is an appetite for his candidacy, said Muth, who is heading up an anti-Reid political action committee, Dump Reid PAC, to raise money for his opponent.

The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) on Friday declared the Nevada race for governor as one of its top-tier contests for 2010 -- a move that was expected, given Republican incumbent Jim Gibbons' vulnerable position heading into the election year.

The DGA previously hesitated to officially target the Nevada race while the possibility of a competitive Democratic primary still loomed.

But that prospect was eliminated last week when state Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley announced she would not run. That has cleared the way for Rory Reid -- an officeholder in the Las Vegas region and son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- to stake his claim on the Democratic nomination.

"With no primary on the Democratic side, we will have a straight path to victory in Nevada," Nathan Daschle, the DGA's executive director, said in a release. "The DGA will fully engage politically with Commissioner Reid, helping him to build and execute a winning strategy. We believe that Nevada is ripe for Democratic leadership."

His poll numbers aren't great and there's a long line of Republicans eager to take him on.

How does Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid deal with that? By ignoring it, at least for now.

"Right now, I have a job to do for the people of the state of Nevada and the people of this country, and I'm doing my very best to move this agenda along," Reid said Tuesday.

"Republicans have a primary that'll be decided next June," Reid, who is running for a fifth Senate term, said Tuesday. "At last count, there are 10 Republicans involved in that primary."

"I think the people of Nevada know me very well. They know what I've done over the years, and we'll deal with the Republicans when that's necessary. Right now, that's not necessary."

Coaxing Arlen Specter into switching parties and running for re-election as a Democrat was a major coup for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is bending the Senate's schedule to accommodate a presidential fundraiser for Specter Tuesday afternoon in Pennsylvania.

Reid announced Friday that the Senate would hold no votes after 3 p.m. Tuesday. His office later said that the scheduling decision was meant to accommodate a long-planned fundraiser that President Obama is headlining in Philadelphia to benefit Specter's campaign.

The move could delay efforts to finish work on the fiscal 2010 transportation spending bill, which the Senate began considering Thursday.

A former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee said Thursday that he is seeing a "momentum shift" away from Democrats ahead of the November 2010 elections but cautioned against making predictions of significant Republican gains more than a year before the balloting.

Former Virginia Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, who served in the House from 1995 through 2008 and now is president of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, told reporters that the first midterm election in a new presidential administration has almost always yielded seat gains in Congress to the party not controlling the White House.

Though Republicans still have poor approval ratings, they could make gains in a low-turnout 2010 election from voters who are uneasy with one-party rule in Washington. Democrats have advantages of 256-178 in the House and 59-40 in the Senate.

Nevada Republicans have a new candidate seeking to challenge four-term Democrat Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader: State Sen. Mark Amodei, who hails from the state capital of Carson City in northern Nevada, formally launched his campaign Wednesday.

Amodei is a 14-year veteran of the state Assembly and Senate who cannot run again for his current office in 2010 because of Nevada's term-limit law, as noted by Las Vegas Sun political analyst Jon Ralston, who also pointed out that Amodei is one of the few Republicans from northern Nevada who has been contemplating a challenge to Reid.

Amodei indicated earlier this year that he would back a potential Senate bid by Dean Heller, the Republican who is in his second term representing the state's sprawling 2nd Congressional District. But Heller, also a Carson City resident, announced in August he is running for re-election to the House and not for the Senate in 2010, opening the door for Amodei and a number of other GOP hopefuls.

Already in the Republican primary field are Las Vegas real estate developer Danny Tarkanian, son of famed University of Nevada at Las Vegas basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian; former state Assemblywoman Sharron Angle; doctor Robin Titus; and Reno attorney Chuck Kozak, among others.

Sue Lowden announced Wednesday night that she was stepping down from her post as chairwoman of the Nevada Republican party as she explores a challenge to Sen. Harry Reid.

Lowden told party leaders on a regularly-scheduled conference call that she would be departing Sept. 30. "The reason for my decision is that I am currently testing the waters on the possibility of running for U.S. Senate," Lowden said in a release. "Because we already have some announced Republican candidates for the 2010 Senate campaign, I believe it is important to remove any perceptions of possible conflicts with my duties as Chairman."

Lowden didn't give any indication of which way she was leaning on the Senate race, but did say she plans "to stay as engaged as ever, fighting for the issues that affect us all."

Former Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval has stirred up some much-needed excitement in the state Republican party with his resignation Aug. 14 as a federal judge with the U.S. District Court in Nevada.

After four years in the state Assembly, three on the Nevada Gaming Commission and two years as attorney general, Sandoval had a bright political future in an otherwise short bench of Nevada GOP officials. His nomination to the federal judgeship, a lifetime appointment, was widely seen as an attempt by Democratic Sen. Harry Reid to eliminate a potential future rival.

Now, however, Sandoval is back in the political fray and local observers see his sudden resignation as a sign he is looking to run for governor in 2010. As Las Vegas Sun political columnist Jon Ralston wrote Sunday, "No one in his mid-40s resigns from a federal judgeship without something serious in mind ... So trust me: Sandoval is running for governor and will make an announcement after the resignation becomes effective in a month."

Nevada Republican party chairwoman and possible Senate challenger Sue Lowden hit back at Sen. Harry Reid Monday after Reid dismissed Lowden's political viability in an interview with Politics Daily last week.

And she sounded like she was warming up for future sparring with the Senate majority leader.

In the Politics Daily article, Reid said that Lowden "couldn't get elected to the state Senate. She was against mammograms for women." Actually, Lowden was elected to the state Senate twice, though she lost her re-election bid in 1996. And Monday, Lowden called the claim that she opposed mammogram funding a "careless and false charge."

"My vote was against unfunded mandates and budget-busting levels of spending that ultimately drives up the costs of health insurance to the point Nevadans can no longer afford it," Lowden said in a statement.

Months of wooing by the Republican party have gone for naught -- Nevada Rep. Dean Heller on Tuesday told the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, John Cornyn of Texas, that he will not challenge Democratic Sen. Harry Reid in 2010, a Republican official confirmed.

Heller was Republicans' top hope for the race, but local observers were doubtful he would actually choose to run, given his relatively comfortable seat in the House and the uphill battle of taking on the amply-funded majority leader.

"Harry Reid is a powerful and mean campaigner, and I say that with respect," said Erik Herzik, chair of the University of Nevada-Reno's political science department.

Heller's fundraising also indicated that he was not preparing for what would have been an expensive Senate campaign -- he raised $166,000 in the second quarter and had $255,000 in the bank at the end of June. Reid, in comparison, closed out June with more than $7 million in cash on hand.

The Republican party certainly isn't having trouble attracting challengers to take on Democrat Harry Reid, just not the sort of savvy, seasoned politician best able to take down the Senate majority leader.

The latest to jump in is Danny Tarkanian, son of legendary college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, who launched his bid Monday in Las Vegas. Tarkanian, himself a star basketball player at University of Nevada-Las Vegas, one-time basketball coach and currently a Las Vegas real estate developer, issued a statement to the local press on Aug. 7 announcing that "without reservation I am committing myself to this cause -- to fight for what is right for Nevadans."

"I have no illusions about what I'm up against, but I also know I am doing the right thing," Tarkanian said.

The health care ad assault continues this week, led by a $1.2 million ad campaign launched by conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth.

The Club is targeting members of the House and Senate from four states whom it believes "may be persuaded to reject a government-run health insurance program" -- read, centrist Democrats, many with competitive contests on the horizon.

Those targeted include: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada; Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall of Colorado; Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas; and Byron L. Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

Democratic represenatives include Marion Berry, Vic Snyder and Mike Ross of Arkansas; Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, John Salazar, Betsy Markey and Ed Perlmutter of Colorado; and Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota.

The ads, which Club for Growth said will "run throughout the August recess," seeks to play up seniors' fear that the Democrats' proposed health care overhaul will lead to government intervention in end-of-life decisions, or as Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan less artfully put it last week, "government-encouraged euthanasia."

A Senate amendment that would have allowed licensed gun owners to carry concealed firearms across state lines was backed by six Democratic senators who are running for re-election in 2010.

Among those voting "aye" on the amendment, which received 58 votes but failed because 60 votes were required for adoption, were Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter's latest campaign finance report includes Democratic donors who are among his newest friends and Republicans who demanded and received contributions after he switched parties in late April.

Arlen Specter (Photo by Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly)

One prominent Republican who requested and received a contribution refund was Rob Gleason, the chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, which has even set up a Web site to help Republican donors request refunds.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is the latest member of the Democratic Party establishment to get behind appointed New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's 2010 campaign.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, joined a growing list of Gillibrand backers, including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who announced his support on Thursday.

Gillibrand has been hustling to line up support from congressional colleagues and Democratic support groups in advance of an expected primary challenge by nine-term Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney. Aides to Maloney have said that she will announce in late July that she is a candidate for the 2010 special election.

Back from another trip to the Senate's public records office, which is busy processing the dozens of campaign finance reports that senators and candidates had to mail by a July 15 deadline.

Most of the reports, which cover receipts and expenditures for the second quarter of 2009 and often run into the hundreds of pages, aren't yet available for viewing. (Unfortunately, the Senate doesn't mandate electronic filing of campaign finance reports). But here are some useful nuggets of information from campaign reports I did view earlier today.

Alabama: Talk about low overhead. Republican Sen. Richard C. Shelby, a shoo-in to win a fifth term in 2010, raised $1.4 million and spent just $96,000 doing so. That's less than 7 percent of his second-quarter receipts. Even at this early stage, most campaigns spend a larger percentage of their receipts on fundraising and staff expenses. (For example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid raised $3.3 million and spent $976,000, or about 30 percent.) Shelby has a whopping $14.8 million cash-on-hand as July began.

If Rep. Dean Heller is considering a Senate run, it's not showing in his fundraising.

The Nevada Republican, who has been touted as a possible challenger to Majority Leader Harry Reid, raised $166,000 in the second quarter and $255,000 in the bank -- not shabby for a member of Congress with no major challenger at the moment, but certainly not Senate-race-ready.

Compare that to another House member who is expected to mount a Senate run, New York Democrat Carolyn B. Maloney. Maloney tallied $578,000 in receipts and banked $1.7 million as of June 30.

Nevada Republicans can't seem to find a top-tier candidate to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010. And new fundraising figures disclosed by Reid Tuesday won't help the GOP in those efforts.

Reid said his reelection campaign had pulled in $3.25 million in the second quarter and had $7.3 million in the bank at the end of June, an announcement clearly meant to deter a serious GOP challenge..

"Having raised nearly $11 million [total in the cycle], Reid has already brought in nearly half of the $25 million he is planning to raise, with 16 months left until the November 2010 election," his campaign crowed in a release.

Reid's second quarter haul is a jump from the $2.2 million he raised in the first quarter of 2009. He got a boost from a Las Vegas fundraiser attended by President Obama in May. The Democrat's full fundraising report, due to the Federal Election Commission by midnight Wednesday, will provide more detail on when donations were made and from whom.

No top-tier Republican has yet to jump in the race for the seat, despite Reid's sluggish poll numbers in Nevada. Former Rep. Jon Porter ruled out a run in June. The biggest name currently circulating is second-term Rep. Dean Heller, who represents Nevada's 2nd District and sits on the House's powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Robert "Bud" Cramer

Cramer, who represented northern Alabama's 5th District from 1991 through 2008, gave $68,000 in this year's second quarter to Democratic candidates and committees, according to a filing his still-active campaign committee made Monday.

Cramer's committee gave $50,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats. He gave $2,500 to the Blue Dog PAC and also gave money to House or Senate members who affiliate with that group of centrist Democrats who promote fiscal restraint: Reps. Bobby Bright of Alabama ($2,000), Dan Boren of Oklahoma ($1,500) and Lincoln Davis of Tennessee ($2,000) and Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas ($1,000). Bright will face a tough re-election race.

Cramer's committee also gave $4,000 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who also faces the voters in 2010.

Though Cramer's contributions were generous, they amounted to a very small fraction of his overall campaign treasury. Cramer had $1.3 million in his account as July began.

Rory Reid

While the younger Reid has not announced his bid for the seat held by trouble-plagued Republican Jim Gibbons, he has hired a campaign manager with an eye-catching resume: David Chase Cohen, who worked on Barack Obama's presidential campaign as deputy national director of voter contact and then manager of general election direct mail in 16 "battleground" states.

Still, Reid, who currently serves as a Clark County commissioner, says he is in no rush to make things official. "I'm leaning toward running, but it's still too premature for me to make an announcement," he told CQ Politics in a phone interview on Wednesday. "People out here want to enjoy their summers right now, not hear from politicians."

Nevada Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons blasted President Obama for headlining a Las Vegas fundraiser last month for Majority Leader Harry Reid, the four-term senator from Nevada.

Now Gibbons' wife, Dawn, has jumped onto the Harry Reid re-election bandwagon. The move is not as surprising as it might first appear, though: the ex-first couple is embroiled in a bitter and public divorce.

Dawn Gibbons' endorsement of Reid is particularly interesting because Reid's son, Rory, chairman of the Clark County (Las Vegas) Commission, is said to be considering a run for governor in 2010 that could turn into a challenge to Jim Gibbons. The first-term governor's poll numbers are abysmal and he faces a lawsuit brought by a former cocktail waitress who has accused him of assaulting her in a Las Vegas parking lot -- so Democrats are hoping he stays in the 2010 race, even though a number of fellow Republicans are trying to urge him out.

Majority Leader Harry Reid does not yet have a Republican challenger for his 2010 Senate race. So it's all the more noteworthy that a home-state newspaper has all but endorsing his re-election bid. In an editorial published Wednesday, the Las Vegas Sun called Reid an "extraordinary asset" and wrote that "Nevadans would be foolish to dump" him.

The Sun credited the four-term Democrat with raising "the state's profile," making the state's issues "a priority in Washington" and directing "millions of dollars in federal money to Nevada for a variety of needs, including schools and roads."

And the paper warned against replacing a high ranking elected official with one who would start at the bottom of the leadership ranks -- citing as an example the defeat of Democratic Sen. Howard Cannon by Republican in 1982, which the paper said led to "disastrous" results.