Nevada Republicans seeking a candidate to take down Sen. Harry Reid

Republicans ask: Who can beat Sen. Harry Reid?

LAS VEGAS — Republican Beatrice Vibal says Sen. Harry Reid has got to go. But the means to that end is another matter.

With Tuesday’s primary election in sight, the retired school nurse is wavering. Early on she liked what she heard from candidate Sue Lowden, then she started leaning toward tea party favorite Sharron Angle. Now, Vibal, 67, has seen a newspaper poll suggesting businessman Danny Tarkanian would be the strongest Republican to take on the Senate Democratic leader.

“I’m torn,” she says. “Who really can beat Harry Reid?”

That question bedeviled undecided Republicans across Nevada on Monday as Angle made appearances in rural Elko and Ely, Tarkanian swept through Sparks, a Reno suburb, and Lowden planned to meet with supporters in Las Vegas.

Tarkanian went right to the point Sunday at a conservative political forum in northwest Las Vegas, where Vibal was in the audience.

“I can beat Harry Reid,” Tarkanian said.

Polls suggest a close race, with Angle leading a pack of 12 candidates.

But with a significant pool of undecided voters, the candidates have each been arguing they have the credentials to oust the powerful majority leader.

Lowden, the one-time front-runner, is making the case that Angle can’t win in November. “Angle in November means Reid in December,” her campaign says. Banker John Chachas, who has lagged in polls, says Lowden, Angle and Tarkanian each have “impediments” that give the senator an advantage, including questions about their ability to raise money nationally and “intellectual gravitas.”

Lowden has run TV ads attacking Angle’s proposal from her days in the Legislature when she wanted inmates to enter a drug rehabilitation program devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, an idea she still defends.

Angle has benefited from ads run by the Tea Party Express and the anti-tax Club for Growth. Tarkanian circulated a video of Lowden suggesting bartering with doctors for medical care — “our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor” — and asking if she was the best candidate to take on Reid.

Reid, who faces only token primary opposition, spent the campaign’s final days in Washington, awaiting the GOP survivor and buoyed by the Republican infighting. In a turn of fortune in recent weeks, polls suggest he’s now running about even in polls with potential rivals.

A key for Reid will be making the race about the Republican, not him. Reid has never been a beloved figure in his home state, but his popularity cratered as Nevada was battered by the recession and its wake. The unemployment rate hit a record in April, 13.7 percent, and the state leads the nation in foreclosures.

If Angle wins, Reid could focus the race on some of her controversial proposals, such as phasing out Social Security for younger workers or eliminating the Education Department, says University of Nevada, Reno, political scientist Eric Herzik.

“Harry Reid goes from being on defense to being on offense with Sharron Angle,” Herzik says.

Angle lost close elections in her last two runs for public office. In 2006, she ran in a three-way primary for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District and lost to Dean Heller by 421 votes. Two years ago, she challenged state Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, a Senate stalwart first elected in 1972, and lost by 548 votes.

At the forum Sunday, retired Treasury employee Phil Devincentis, 68, a Republican, said he was considering Angle or Tarkanian and considered them both strong conservatives.

“I just want to make sure Reid does not get elected,” he said.