Again, we adhere to the cardinal rule: early voting trends aren’t a crystal ball. Yet, in Nevada, the Republican share of the vote right now has never been seen in the Reid Machine era. If anything, the takeaway is that rural Republicans in the state are voting like crazy. That’s a good thing. Jon Ralston, who’s been tracking the numbers, stated the obvious: it’s better to be a Republican than a Democrat regarding the latest vote dump (via Nevada Independent):
The Dems added a few more votes when Washoe mail was updated, but Rs still lead by 44,400, or 4.6 percent. The GOP lead has been slowly growing, but as it has slowed, its percentage lead has been cut by about a point from its apex.
At the risk of stating the obvious, you would rather be the party ahead by 44,000 ballots. So let’s see what that really means. Let’s give the Dems the best of it and say by tonight’s last mail dump of the in-person voting period, the Rs lead by 40,000 ballots. More than 1 million voters will have cast ballots by the end of today, more than 70 percent of the vote will be in.
The Democrats need to cut that margin in half, I’d guess, by Election Day, which I think is going to be very different this year because the GOP will have a much smaller advantage because Republicans are cannibalizing at least some of their vote. (One data guru tells me 82 percent of the GOP firewall right now were Election Day voters two years ago. There’s something happening here…)
There would seem to be a lot of Clark mail ballots still to come, which will help the Dems over the next few days, including the day after the election, I’d guess. (They can count until four days afterwards, but the overwhelming majority afterwards will come in Nov. 6, if past is prologue.)
Before tonight’s dump, 321,000 mail ballots have been posted by Clark. In 2020, the final number of mail ballots was 457,000; some think it could get to half a million. But let’s assume 450,000 for this modeling.
Let’s assume Dems win those extra 130,000 ballots by 20 points; that’s 26,000 additional ballots in their favor, which will translate into about as many votes. So it is quite possible they could cut the GOP margin in half after all is said and done. (It’s unclear how much in mail will be gained in Washoe and perhaps lost in the rurals, although the Clark number will be much, much larger.)
Let’s assume the Rs have a 20,000-25,000 raw vote advantage after Election Day. If it gets much beyond that, the chances for a Dem win get slimmer. I think Nov. 5 could be closer to a wash than the past two cycles because of the GOP frontloading. (No one really knows but I doubt it’s more than 10 -12 percent of the vote based on what we have seen.)
Let’s also assume that indies are just under 30 percent of the 1.4 million we forecast will turnout – could be a little lower. So let’s say 400,000 of them.
[…]
…the Dems will need to win indies by at least 5 points and maybe 6 or 7. Is it possible? Sure. But it’s a heavy lift.
I want to be clear about something else, too: If the Clark mail underperforms 2020, that will be a huge problem for the Dems. They will not cut into the GOP raw vote lead as much and have to win indies by that much more. I still think the indie share of the vote is a key metric to watch, too. Every tick it gets above 30 percent almost surely would help the Dems because they skew younger and many are Dem voters. We will know a lot more about mail and indie share this weekend.
The NV early voting blog is updated!
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) November 2, 2024
You'd rather be GOP than Dems as in-person early voting ends today. But three variables are key: Clark mail, indie split and Election Day turnout.
For you Hold 'Em players, it's QQ vs. AK. (Credit to @mbrooksrjc)https://t.co/Pl43XBMcPA
NV voter update: GOP extends lead to 49 K statewide.
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) November 2, 2024
That's 4.8 percent.
Rural landslide continues.
It's now Clark mail or bust for Dems, steep climb.
I'll update the blog tomorrow at some point.
Dems actually won Clark County today in combined in-person and mail posted by SOS by...
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) October 31, 2024
10 votes.
That's because mail (there will be more later tonight) was again a small number, only 7,000.
Rurals helped boost GOP lead to new high. https://t.co/XAez00Jpt1
A Democrat consultant friend told me they went from thinking Kamala can win the state to hoping the 3 House Dems and U.S. Senator can win. https://t.co/3HbkOItujz
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) November 2, 2024
We’ll keep you updated.
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