With in person early voting over in Nevada, only mail and non-polling place drop-offs are left before Election day. The GOP voter lead stands at 45,102, or ~4.3%, as of the numbers released as of writing, with practically no overall increase from the last day of in person early voting to bolster it. The GOP may be exhausting its pool of voters, but the Dem seem unable to tap theirs. Nevada is looking far more Red with the dissolution of the Harry Reid Machine.
Nevada Republicans’ early in person is 97,103 or ~17.8%. This is a lower percentage than in ’22. However, Democrats’ mail voter lead of 51,001, or 10.3%, is much lower than the leads they had in ’22 of 16.9% and 13.8% in the 1st and 2nd week, respectively.
At this point for Nevada in 2022, mail ballots were the gross majority of votes cast; in 2024 so far, there are more in person early votes than mail/drop-off ballots. This will change in the Democrats favor as four more days through Election Day plus a few more for late arriving ballot, but likely not by enough to give them the margins they saw in 2022.
The Nevada Democrats’ 16,437 lead in Clark is wiped out by just the two rural counties of Douglas and Nye, which give the GOP a voter lead of 10,379 and 8.974, respectively, despite Clark having 14 times the population! The Republicans lead in Washoe is at 9017 or 5.0%. Democrats lead in Clark is only 2.2%. The Nevada Democrats’ problem is that their mail ballot game is poorer than it was in 2022. The institutional knowledge of the Harry Reid Machine seems to have disappeared along with the late Harry Reid.
Political machines matter, and with the death of Harry Reid, the machine the Democrats relied on appears to be collapsing. Their over-reliance on that machine is hurting them now and will continue to hurt them in at least the near future.
The early voter lead in Nevada for the Republicans will diminish, potentially by 10K or more, and late arriving ballots could net Democrats tens of thousands of actual votes after Election Day as they did in 2022 by a large enough margin to turn the U.S. Senate seat into a narrow flip to the Republicans into a narrow retention by the Democrats.. But even that might not be enough this year.
The GOP in Nevada has clearly gotten over its allergy to early voting. How much this impacts the Election Day vote will be interesting to see. This may likely be an election year where past trends don’t hold. Anomaly or new normal? Will have to wait for the next couple of elections to know for sure.
If the Democrats win big enough of the Nevada Election Day vote and get the independents and 3rd party vote, they could still win, though there is no indication that that will actually happen. If the GOP does very well on either Election Day votes or with Independents, It’s all over for the Democrats.
tl;dr: Nevada Democrats need late deciding voters to go heavily for the Democrats and in large numbers, and if they don’t get that lucky late break, then this election will not be a good one for them; while this is not impossible, it is looking improbable when one compares the trends this year with the trends of the one previous election with the same election set-up.
