You can comment all you like about how grassroots lds Nevada voters see Harry Reid; the key in my estimation is how Lds, Inc. (top-down hierarchy) views Harry Reid.
We know that Harry Reid is an official visiting home teacher for the Lds church (#1 below)...
...which also via BYU ensured that Harry Reid was invited to an all-student/all-faculty forum with Reid as speaker in October 2007 (#2 below).
#1 The Salt Lake Tribune ran an October 2009 article Harry Reid: A Mormon in the Middle
Here were two “interesting” comments by fellow Mormons about Reid, including one from Sen. Orrin Hatch:
Bennett's Utah Senate colleague, Orrin Hatch, says it's not fair for fellow Mormons to disparage Reid as anything but a devout Mormon..."I can personally tell you that Harry is a good member of the LDS faith and he was expressing a personal opinion that his side feels very deeply about," Hatch says.
Well, there ya go, Chuck. This Trib article also mentioned how ”Today, Reid, with his security escort in tow, likely will be making his home teaching rounds after his ward's three-hour service. Anyone who questions his Mormon credentials should see that, says Jim Vlock, his home-teaching companion.
Now, I've actually searched for Mormon exit poll data for the Nevada Angle-Reid race & couldn't find any. So I don't know how much Mormon support he had there; but just in perusing for Nevada residents who might be representative of support or critique, I found two pro-Reid Mormons:
(a) Kelsey Jorgenson
BYU newspaper citing student speaking about Harry Reid: “I respect him. I think that he basically does do a good job of representing Mormons in general,” said Kelsey Jorgenson, a BYU student from Las Vegas. “He is a political leader after all, and I think he puts on a good public face. I think it’s a good thing that he is a Democrat and a Mormon.” (BYU Daily Universe, Jan. 13, 2010)
And why wouldn’t a BYU student like Miss Jorgenson “respect” Sen. Reid? After all, don’t BYU students come to trust BYU decision-makers as ones who would only invite politician-speakers onto campus worthy of “respect?” And didn’t BYU’s decision-makers do that?
Perhaps Miss Jorgenson is a junior or senior now @ BYU – meaning she probably then heard...
...#2 Reid speak @ BYU two academic years ago. And if she was there, perhaps she heard Sen. Reid tell BYU students: "I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it."
Source: Reid Gets Warm Reception at BYU
(b) Richard Bunker: The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran an article May 30 2010 with this mention: ...Mormon places of worship, where those who support Reid often keep their opinions to themselves...When people try to attack him, there isn't anybody who is willing to speak up," says Richard Bunker, a prominent Mormon and strong Reid supporter who happens to be Republican. "The problem is, the people that are vocal are the ones who are opposed to him, the ones that are beating the tom-toms with the Tea Party and all of that garbage. Sometimes I have to straighten them out." Bunker, whose great-grandfather was among Mormons who founded Bunkerville in 1877…
Source: Harry Reid
“I respect him. I think that he basically does do a good job of representing Mormons in general,”
_____________________________________________________
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I thought the idea was for Harry Reid to represernt ALL the residents of Utah in Congress, both Mormon AND non-Mormons..
“I am a Democrat because I am a Mormon, not in spite of it.”
__________________________________________________
I guess Harry Reid has forgiven Jimmy Carter
In 1978 when Jimmy Carter insisted that his political friends the Mormons change their racist bigoted doctrines and allow black men to be somewhat equal, the Mormons retaliated by refusing to vote Democrat anymore..
The Mormon voting block were told to vote Republican in 1980 and Carter was chucked under the bus...
i’m not getting into that argument. My entire involvement in this thread was to question a specific assertion that Reid won a majority of the Mormon vote.
I can’t prove he didn’t, but there is no evidence he did either. all the articles I’ve cited indicate that voting conservative mormons were turning away from Reid; that changed someone when they launched the videos of Angle’s ex-Pastor.
I don’t doubt that some conservative mormons voted for Reid because he is a mormon. I know Catholics who vote for democrats because they are Catholic, who are otherwise good conservatives. I know some conservatives who are protestant who won’t vote for a Catholic who is conservative. There are people who vote their religion.
I simply wanted actual evidence to show that Reid won the Mormon vote in Nevada in the 2010 election.