Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated today that his re-election prospects will be looking far better next year once the economy is back on track.

"It appears as though this recession has bottomed out and that change is taking place," Reid said at a press conference today. "Now, we all know that unemployment always lags behind economic recovery. So I feel that Nevada, like the rest of the states in the country, are going next year to see economic recovery."

Reid said Nevada and the country as a whole will begin to feel more positively "once that takes place," and presumably his re-election chances will look better than they do today.

At the press conference, the senator was answering a direct question regarding his re-election and comments that one of his potential GOP opponents, attorney Danny Tarkanian, made regarding the senator not spending much time in his home state.

"The Republicans have a primary next June," said Reid. "At last count there were 10 Republicans enrolled in that primary. I think the people of Nevada know me real well, they know what I've done over the years. ... I have a job to do for the people of Nevada and the people of this country."

Reid is facing such a difficult environment that political handicappers say the race is anyone's game. A Rasmussen automated poll, conducted yesterday of 500 likely voters and released today, finds him trailing Tarkanian by 7 points (50 percent to 43 percent) and Nevada GOP chair Sue Lowden by 10 points (50 percent to 40 percent).

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