“Reid’s people are really antsy,” said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Reid’s far-reaching political machine tends to come down hard on those who talk out of school. “That’s why their external message has been to try really, really hard to discredit these polls. Angle is building up a lot of momentum, and they don’t know how to stop it. This is exactly what happened during the primary.”

In response to the new polling, campaign pollster Mark Mellman was drafting a memo Thursday to reassure staff and donors that they shouldn’t put any stock in the surveys.

Mellman noted to POLITICO that two of the three were automated polls conducted over the course of one night—which traditional pollsters insist is a less reliable method—and he pointed out that one-night polls also don’t account for the Las Vegas area’s large population of night-shift workers, who tend to be union-member Democrats.