The first six days of early voting have finished and the Blue Wave continues to build: Democrats have built up a voter edge of 26342, for a voter lead of 8%, which is 2% above the Democrats active voter edge. This is comparable to what the Democrats had statewide in 2012 at this point. The Republicans have slowed down the Blue Wave, but Democrats do best on or near the weekends, so the numbers will likely get worse for the Republicans this coming three-day weekend (Friday is Nevada Day, a state holiday), and the final Friday of early voting. The one silver lining on this coming Democratic storm cloud is that the Republicans are doing much better in absentee ballots, with a statewide lead of 2053, which is in contrast with 2012 when the Republicans had a 493 vote lead. This isn’t much of a lead, and even if the lead were much higher, it wouldn’t make much of a dent as absentees so far have been only about 15% of in-person early voting numbers.
The Democrat voter edge in Clark County remains at 16% (almost 36,000 votes), which is 2% above their active voter registration lead, and a point below to the Democrats’ lead in 2012, adjusted for the increase in active voters. The Democrat voter edge in Washoe County is 4% (with voter lead dropping below 2500 votes), which is still 5½% more than their deficit in active voters registered of 1½%, which is much more than the 1800 voter lead the Democrats had in Washoe county at this point. The rural counties balances out the increase in strength for the Democrats in Washoe, yet again demonstrating that the fifteen rural counties (including Carson City) tend to punch well above their weight in elections. Ominously, the Democrats continue to have a voter lead in Mineral County, which rarely goes Democrat unless there is an overwhelming wave for the Democrats in the northern part of the state. While the lead in Mineral County is only 7 votes out of 556, Mineral County doesn’t go Democrat unless there is an overwhelming wave for the Democrats in the northern part of the state.
U.S. Senate, Congress, and State Senate
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. While Joe Heck has a much better ground game and campaign than Heller did four years ago, Heller didn’t have to contend with the Trump effect, or with the campaign of Cortez Masto. While in almost any other year, Cortez Masto would be running a loosing campaign against Heck, the similar Democrat lead to 2012, despite a double-digit increase in active registered voters, is a good sign for Joe Heck.
Both the 3rd and 4th Congressional Districts find the Republicans trailing badly. 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.
Continue reading →
