Harry Mason Reid (born December 2, 1939) is the senior United States Senator from Nevada and a member of the Democratic Party, as well as the U.S. Senate Majority Leader as of the 110th Congress.

Reid has been leader of the Senate Democrats since 2005, serving as Minority Leader from 2005 until the Democrats won control of the Senate in the 2006 congressional elections. He is the first member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to serve as Senate Majority Leader.

Biography

Reid was born in Searchlight, Nevada, the son of a miner in the hardscrabble camp 50 miles southeast of Las Vegas. He attended Basic High School in Henderson, Nevada, where he played football and met future Nevada governor Mike O'Callaghan, who was a teacher at Basic at the time. Reid attended Southern Utah University and Utah State University. He then got his juris doctor from George Washington University, while paying for law school while working for the United States Capitol Police. Reid became Henderson's city attorney after law school, then a state assemblyman. At age 30, Reid was chosen by O'Callaghan as his running mate for Nevada's lieutenant governor.

He later served on the Nevada Gaming Commission before running for U.S. House in 1982.

Political career: 1967-2009

see: Electoral history of Harry Reid

Nevada politics: 1967-1981

Reid was elected to the Nevada State Assembly in 1967. He left after being elected lieutenant governor in 1970, the same year his mentor O'Callaghan was elected governor. He served in that office until 1974, when he ran for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Alan Bible. He lost by fewer than 600 votes to former Governor Paul Laxalt. In 1975, Reid ran for Las Vegas mayor and lost again, this time to Bill Briare.

Reid then served as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 to 1981, a post that subjected him to death threats. Reid's wife once found a bomb attached to one of their cars. Jack Gordon also tried to bribe Reid. Reid allowed the FBI to tape Gordon's attempt to bribe him with $12,000, which led to Gordon's conviction in federal court in 1979 and sentence to six months in prison.

U.S. Representative: 1982-1987

Prior to the 1980 census, Nevada had only one member in the United States House of Representatives, but population growth in the 1970s resulted in the state picking up a second district. Reid won the Democratic nomination for the 1st District, based in Las Vegas, in 1982, and easily won the general election. He served two terms in the House, from 1983 to 1987.

U.S. Senator: 1987-2009

In 1986, Reid won the Democratic nomination for the seat of retiring two-term incumbent Paul Laxalt. He defeated former at-large Congressman Jim Santini, a Democrat who had turned Republican, in the November election. He coasted to reelection in 1992. However, he barely defeated 1st District Congressman John Ensign in 1998 in the midst of a statewide Republican sweep.