The most influential politician in Nevada for more than a decade, Mr Reid steered hundreds of millions of dollars to the state and was credited with almost single-handedly blocking construction of a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain outside Las Vegas. 

He often went out of his way to defend social programs that make easy political targets, calling social security “one of the great government programs in history”.

He also championed suicide prevention, often telling the story of his father, a hard-rock miner who took his own life. He stirred controversy in 2010 when he said in a speech on the floor of the Nevada legislature it was time to end legal prostitution in the state.

His moderation meant he was never politically secure in his home state, or entirely trusted in the increasingly polarised Senate. Democrats grumbled about his votes for a ban on so-called partial-birth abortion and the Iraq war resolution in 2002, something he later said it was his biggest regret in Congress.

He also voted against most gun control bills and in 2013 after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, dropped a proposed ban on assault weapons from the Democrats’ gun control legislation. The package, he said, would not pass with the ban attached.

Mr Reid ascended to the job of majority leader in 2007 after the Democrats won control of the Senate. Despite being a political moderate who differed from others in his party on abortion, the environment and gun control, Mr Reid regularly clashed with the Republicans and maintained poor relations with the opposition party’s congressional leaders.

He chose not to run for re-election in 2016, a year after suffering broken ribs and facial bones, and injuring an eye in an accident while exercising at home.

On his way out of office, he repeatedly lambasted Donald Trump, calling him at one point “a sociopath” and “a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate”.

He and his wife, Landra, had five children.