It is claimed that Senator Harry Reid has discouraged an office seeker from running for a House seat from Arizona. Jesse Sbaih, an immigrant from Jordan who is now a trial lawyer says he was told by Senator Reid that the reason he would not succeed was because he is Muslim. Reid’s office denies this statement. If true, this could impact politics as usual in Arizona.

As Written By David A. Fahrenthold at The Washington Post:

Nev. candidate says Reid urged him to quit, because ‘a Muslim cannot win this race.’

A Muslim Democrat running for a U.S. House seat in Nevada says that — in a private meeting last year — Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) had encouraged him to end his campaign by saying, “a Muslim cannot win this race.”

“He said, ‘You should not run for this office,’” said Jesse Sbaih, an immigrant from Jordan who is now a trial lawyer. This race for the House, in a district that includes a swath of suburban Las Vegas, is his first run for political office.

A spokeswoman for Reid, however, denied that Reid had said those words.

Sbaih said it happened after he had entered the House race. He met with Reid in August in a meeting room at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.

Sbaih said he had sought the meeting in order to win Reid’s support — a key factor in Nevada, where Reid is the unquestioned power broker of Democratic politics. But Reid would not give it, Sbaih said, and cited Sbaih’s religion as one reason why.

“I did not feel that this was an issue. They made it an issue. My campaign is about me being an American,” Sbaih said. He said he had not faced this kind of opposition based on his religion before: “I just turned 40. Been in this country for 29 years. And it’s just absolutely shocking that this occurred.”