CARSON CITY – State Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, today announced he is supporting Democrat Harry Reid in his U.S. Senate race against GOP challenger Sharron Angle.

“Other than my inability to accept her extreme and often even radical ideas and positions, if there was any concern about my natural preference to endorse a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, it was removed altogether when Angle, in a secretly taped conversation, expressed her true feelings by slamming and disavowing the Republican Party saying it had ‘lost its standards and principles,’ ” Raggio said in a statement.

“We need someone in the U.S. Senate who can be effective, work with others, and best represent the interests of our State,” he said.

“Having said this, I am not pleased or supportive of many of the issues which Senator Reid has supported and I have told him so. I believe he understands that he must vote more strongly to represent the views of his Nevada constituency in the future rather than a liberal agenda which many feel drifts toward Socialism in America. With that caveat, I will reluctantly vote for Senator Reid’s re-election.”