'I won’t back down when the stakes are so high,' said Sharron Angle. | REUTERS GOP braces for Angle's encore run

She’s back.

After unceremoniously crashing the Nevada Senate race last year — raising record amounts of money and becoming a headache for establishment Republicans while also endearing herself to tea party activists nationwide — Sharron Angle is returning for an encore performance with a run for the U.S. House.


Seated at a kitchen table in a campaign video, Angle announced her candidacy for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District Tuesday, instantly transforming the fight for a sleepy rural open House seat into a what will likely become a nationally watched contest.

“The effort to bring the people’s voice back into government did not end in 2010,” said Angle in the video, posted on her website and on YouTube. “I won’t back down when the stakes are so high and when the job needs doing,” she continued, previewing her slogan in a subsequent e-mail to supporters.

“Now she’s in, so let the games begin,” said Nevada national GOP committeewoman Heidi Smith, who spoke to Angle by phone about her decision Wednesday morning.

Angle’s return to the electoral arena was greeted among Republican operatives from Las Vegas to Washington with more eye-rolling and regret than surprise.

“This was the worst-kept secret in Nevada politics. She was going to run for whatever Dean Heller didn’t run for. Sharron is on the ballot pretty much every other year. It’s a bit of shame, she could’ve advanced the conservative cause more by not being on the ballot,” said GOP consultant Ryan Erwin, who is advising Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, a likely rival of Angle’s for the party’s nomination to the seat.

For the National Republican Senatorial Committee — which struggled managing Angle’s 2010 jumbled operation — her decision to pass on a Senate bid is welcome news. Heller, who on Tuesday announced his candidacy for the seat being vacated by Sen. John Ensign, has likely dodged the biggest obstacle to the nomination.

“We don’t want Dean Heller to have a primary,” said Smith.

Their House campaign committee colleagues, on the other hand, are now burdened with a high-profile candidate who is widely viewed as erratic, undisciplined and unpredictable. Angle’s entry raises the prospect of a divisive primary fight that could leave the party hamstrung for the general election.

“We’re not horribly excited about it,” said one House GOP aide, who requested anonymity in order to candidly discuss the party’s views of Angle. “She lost to Reid and is polarizing. She got so battered in the last election.”

Democrats have already circulated a list of Angle’s most controversial views, including when she said she wasn’t “in the business of creating jobs” and her support for transitioning out of the Social Security and Medicare systems.

“The Republican primary for Congress in this district is now clearly a battle of extremists and a race for the radical right wing of the Republican party,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Jesse Ferguson.

Chief among GOP officials’ concerns is Angle’s ability to build a strong campaign team that can withstand a competitive general election. Several Democrats, including state Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, state Treasurer Kate Marshall and former Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents Chairwoman Jill Derby, who waged unsuccessful bids for the seat in 2006 and 2008, are all considering running.

Heller won reelection by 30 points last year, but President Obama fought Sen. John McCain to a virtual tie in the district in 2008. With redistricting on the horizon, there’s no guarantee the Washoe County-area seat will remain as ruby red.

Chris LaCivita, who served as political director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2010 election cycle, described Angle’s Senate campaign staff as severely incompetent.

“It’s a huge problem [for the party] if she has the same cast and crew,” said LaCivita. “She brings a lot to the table — she has an enormous fundraising base. But you can have all the money in the world and if you have the wrong people spending it, it’s mitigating.”

But, he added, “As long as she doesn’t have the ‘Dinner for Schmucks’ crew around her, I think she’s the frontrunner.”

One House GOP aide, however, offered a less hopeful view.

“Angle had a terrible Senate staff and was a headache for the campaign committee,” the aide said. “I doubt things will be that different in a House race.”

Angle’s almost-universal name recognition — and the reminders of verbal gaffes and strategic stumbles that come with it — present a tall task for any operative hoping to make the candidate over.

“People have already made up their minds whether they like her or not, whether they’ll support her or not,” Erwin said.

A GOP poll of the potential primary field taken in the 2nd Congressional District in early March obtained and by POLITICO illustrates the hill Angle has to climb. Just 40 percent of Republicans said they viewed Angle favorably, and Krolicki held a 34-point lead over her — 56 percent to 22 percent — in a head-to-head match-up.

After falling to Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid by 6 points in November in a contest Republicans still believe they would’ve won with any other candidate, Angle has maintained a high profile, appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington and making swings through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, teasing reporters with hints of a presidential bid.

In addition to her eccentricities, Angle has the reputation of a perennial candidate. In 2006, she put up a formidable fight against Heller in the 2nd District primary after capturing the endorsement of the anti-tax group Club for Growth. But following a lawsuit by Angle, Heller was declared the victor by just 421 votes.

Krolicki, a multilingual Stanford graduate who has been elected statewide four times, is likely to enter the race in the coming weeks, although Erwin said no final decision has been made.

“It doesn’t change his timing or decision-making at all. The political calculation has already been made. This is a seat he can win. In many ways, it’s tailor-made for him,” Erwin said.

Nonetheless, no one should underestimate a candidate who raised $28 million in her last bid and still has a long donor list from which to tap.

“She said that she had a good strong fundraising list and that she’s never really stopped campaigning, so she’s on her way. And a poll has been done that said she could make it, and I think that’s what she’s going on,” Smith said, recalling her conversation with Angle.

One House Republican official said the National Republican Congressional Committee paid close attention to the lessons learned by the NRSC in 2010, when it aggressively endorsed candidates who eventually fell short to tea party-backed contenders.

“They are absolutely not going to play in a primary. They’re just not getting involved. That’s a lesson learned from the past, including from the NRSC,” said Bob Honold, a GOP consultant who oversaw the incumbent protection program for the NRCC last cycle.

But the NRCC is also learning from its own experience, after similarly playing favorites in a string of 2010 primaries where the alternative candidate proved to be successful.

Indeed, the NRCC, one House GOP aide said, will stay far away from this primary.

“I don’t think there’s anything they can do,” said the aide.

Still, the aide pointed out that there’s a difference between keeping the seat in Republican hands and acquiring a constructive new member.

“She absolutely has the ability to win a general in NV-2,” the aide said. But as to whether Angle would, if elected, satisfy the more substantive requirement, the aide responded, “If you think [Michele] Bachmann is a good member.”