Nevada Early Vote Update 2016 (Day 12 of 14)

     If the state and urban county Republicans Parties were smart (which they aren’t), they’d be doing triage hard and focus on only a few races. The 4^th Congressional District and the Assembly are write-offs at this point. In order to save the state Senate, Washoe Republicans need to focus all their energy on the 15^th state Senate district; the Clark County Republicans need to focus all their energy on the 6^th state Senate District. The state Republican Party (in conjunction with Washoe and Clark parties) need to focus on the U.S. Senate seat. Sadly, they don’t have enough time, energy, or money to save Tarkanian at this point in all likelyhood.

     With early voting nearly over, and probably close to ca 60% of the total vote: Democrats maintain a voter lead of just over 33,000, for a voter lead of 5½%, which ½% below the Democrats active voter edge, comparable to 2012 at this point. The Democrat voter edge in Clark County remains just over 13% (over 55,000 votes), which is 1% at their active voter registration lead, though due to the massive increase in overall registration, still leaves the Democrats with over 6000 more early voters in Clark County than four years ago.. The Democrat voter edge in Washoe County, which also includes Wednesday’s voters, is 1% (with voter lead steady at about 2500 votes), which is still 2½% more than their deficit in active voters registered of 1½%.

U.S. Senate & Congress

     In 2012, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Dean Heller won by 1%, or 10,000 votes, against a completely horrible Democratic nominee, Shelley Berkeley. Joe Heck’s still has a chance if the rural counties continue punch above their weight in turnout and give Heck enough margin to overcome the Republicans massive voter deficit in Clark County…and Washoe County, though the non-partisan and 3^rd Party voters might end up giving Heck the edge in Washoe.

     Both the 3^rd and 4^th Congressional Districts find the Republicans trailing badly, with the Democrats building up an even greater firewall. Republicans are behind by over 7100 votes in the 3^rd Congressional District, giving them a 4% lead. With about well over half of the total vote in, the Republicans will need to not only win the late early voters, late absentees, and Election day voters, but win them by an equal magnitude, or hope for a crushing 20%+ lead in with the non-partisan and 3^rd Party voters; the Republicans have shown no indications as of yet that they are capable of pulling that off.

     In the 4^th Congressional District, the Democrats have an overall lead of over 15,000 voters, even when including the less populous rural districts that have reported. The 4^th should be considered a write-off for the Republicans at this point. This will be the first time that Clark County will not have a single Republican Representative in the House since Nevada had a single district back in the 1980 election.

State Senate & Assembly

     With the Republicans having a slip 11-10 lead in the Nevada state Senate, the tipping point of control for the next four years will be SD6, which the Republicans were able to pick up in 2012. Republican nominee Gloria Seaman is still behind by almost 2500 votes, or 8%. The Democrats also have voter lead in SD5 of over 2400, or over 8%. Similar to the 3^rd Congressional District, the Republicans have so far not shown that they can pull a 16% swing needed to win the early voter count or the crushing dominance amongst non-partisan and 3^rd Party voters needed to overcome this deficit. Republicans, furthermore, continue to be behind in SD15, located in Washoe. Washoe, despite having a greater Republican plurality of Republicans than in 2012, has a larger Democratic early and absentee voter lead in 2016 than they did in 2012 at this point; this disparity will likely result in the Republicans not only losing their state Senate majority, but being relegated to single digits in Senators… until 2020 at least (baring a death or resignation of a Democratic state Senator before the 2018 election in SD5, SD6, or SD15.

     The Assembly is continuing to looking to be an absolute disaster for the Republicans.

Here are the percentages and comparison with 2012:

Nevada (statewide)

Clark County

Washoe County

3^rd Congressional District

4^th Congressional District (excepting part of Lyon County)**

5^th state Senate District

 6^th state Senate District

In Summary

     With well over half of the total vote in, and only two days of early voting left, it continues to look like 2016 will be a worse year than 2012. The Republicans are set to lose two of Nevada’s four Congressional districts, the Assembly, and the state Senate for at least four years. However, the rural counties punching above their weight may very well save the day for Joe Heck

     To whit: Republicans should start resigning themselves to cursing the lack of any real ground game (outside of Joe Heck’s campaign) for dooming Nevada for the next two to four years… if not longer.

     * The following counties haven’t reported numbers for Wednesday as of posting: Esmeralda.

     ** Lyon County is split between the 1^st and 4^th Congressional Districts, and early vote broken down by CD was not immediately available; in 2012, Lyon county gave 3012 votes to the Republican, 1002 to the Democrat, and 280 votes to two 3^rd Party candidates.

     *** Esmeralda county hasn’t reported their numbers for Wednesday as of posting.

Let up be reminded of the words of Virgil:

“Do not yield to evil, Attack, attack, more boldly even than fortune seems to permit”

— Virgil, “The Æneid”

     Until the next update…

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