One of the Democratic strategies this cycle is to flood the zone with partisan and suspect polls showing as many House races as possible in play to piggy back on the national generic polls that show legitimately bad news for Republicans. A perfect example of this is in the Las Vegas Review-Journal today which runs with the headline:

Poll: Heller, Derby Tied in House Race. Democrat Erases Republican's Nine-Point Lead

CARSON CITY -- Democrat Jill Derby and Republican Dean Heller are tied in the race for the 2nd Congressional District seat, according to a poll by the Mellman Group of Washington, D.C.

Each drew 40 percent of the votes in a telephone poll last week of 400 voters in the district. Minor party candidates received 5 percent and 15 percent were undecided.

In Mellman's last poll, conducted in early September, Heller led Derby 44 percent to 35 percent.

It is not until you get down to the 8th paragraph when the reader is told that the Democrat Derby's campaign paid for the poll.

This is a calculated tactic on the part of the Democrats that they have been using very effectively as other reporters, pundits and the blogosphere pickup on the headline to play up the story that more and more Republican districts continue to be thrown into play. This is all designed to build up the impression that the bottom is totally falling out for the GOP. Perception can become reality if the GOP is not careful and Republicans have been behind the eight-ball this entire cycle in managing the public relations campaign.

Maybe Nevada's 2nd congressional seat is going to go to the Democrats this year, but this is a district where Al Gore managed a whopping 37% of the vote in 2000 and John Kerry pulled down 41% in 2004. All the independent polls post-Labor Day show the Republican Heller ahead. We don't view a poll paid for by the underdog candidate, showing a tie, as evidence that a race is necessarily in play, and until we see some non-partisan data that NV-2 is really in play we will continue to rate this as a lean Republican contest.