With in-person early voting over for Nevada’s primary, only mail and non-polling place drop-offs are left before Election day. Overall, Republicans lead in-person voting by nearly 15,000 voters while the Democrats have a mail lead so far of nearly 19,000 voters. With the additional mail ballots coming in this coming in this week expected to be similarly favorable to the Democrats, their overall voter lead is expected to grow. The Democrats has an overall lead in the primaries of 2022 and 2024, as well.
Nevada est omnis divisa in partes tres
The state can be divided, as Caeser might say, into three parts: Clark County, which contains Las Vegas and 70% of the states population; Washoe County, which contains Reno and 20% of the states population; and the rural counties, which contain 10% of the states population.
Clark County leans Democratic and continues to do so. The rural counties are overwhelmingly Republican if not more conservative (hard right 3rd parties can be elected to partisan office in many rural counties).
This leaves Washoe as the “Bellwether” county which has usually in the past always gone with the statewide winner in every statewide contest in Nevada this century. However, Washoe, which has a slight Republican plurality or near parity, has been shifting, despite the registration numbers, more reliably to the Democrats.
This is also only the second mid-term primary since Covid19 and the 2020 elections, which saw major changes to the election system, such as hitherto rare absentee ballots becoming universally sent out (save for those who specifically opt out), which changed the dynamics of the early voting numbers.
Where things stand after the end of in-person early voting
Statewide, the GOP has an in-person early ballot lead of just over 16% over the Democrats, while the Democrats have a nearly 10% lead in mail ballots returned and accepted. The good news for the Democrats is that about twice as many ballots have been returned and accepted overall than there have been early voters. This results in an overall voter lead of nearly 5000 out of nearly 295K total votes, or about 1½ %. In 2022, the Democrats had ca 2% lead and in 2024 a lead of ca 4%.
Overall, there isn’t some massive shift in relative turnout like we’ve seen in so many other states, with similar overall number of votes cast, which reflects the near parity of the parties’ voter registration totals.
Of note, the 2nd week early voting resulted in fewer Republican gains, with Democrats winning more in-person votes cast in populous Clark County.
In Person Early Vote after 2nd Week
| Year | GOP | Dem | Other |
| 2022 | 48.0% | 31.7% | 20.6% |
| 2024 | 58.3% | 33.4% | 8.3% |
| 2026 | 52.8% | 37.1% | 52.8% |
Mail Vote Received and Accepted*
| Year | GOP | Dem | Other |
| 2022 | 29.2% | 42.7% | 28.0% |
| 2024 | 34.9% | 48.6% | 16.5% |
| 2026 | 35.3% | 45.1% | 28.2% |
* Mail data obtained on the Saturday after the last day of in-person early voting. Mail votes for just the period through the end of in-person early voting were not immediately available to your humble author for 2022 and 2024, with the percentages for those years being the total mail ballots returned and accepted.
In Clark County, the Democrats have a voter edge of over 8%. In contrast, in Washoe, they have a slight voter lead of ca 2%.
tl;dr
Overall, Nevada remains close to the pattern established from the previous two primary elections since the electoral overhaul, with no clear indication of an upswell (or downswell) for either party, both of whom are about even in voter registration. Only real trend is an upswing in Democrat voting in-person and Republicans being more comfortable with mail ballots, abet typically through dropboxes than through the mail. There is no indication that Nevada is anything but a purple state.
