Want to know what I love the most about the Nevada situation? The biggest counties report every night as opposed to every morning. So you get up to the minute statistics.
This diary will have goodies! And by goodies, I mean comparisons to not only 2008, but also 2004, the year John Kerry narrowly lost Nevada by only two and a half percentage points.
Before I get right into the numbers, I present you with Goodie Number One: In 2004, Clark County registered voters accounted for about 64% of all registered voters in Nevada. Currently, they account for 68% of active voters and 70% of all registered voters in Nevada. This is highly significant, because even if a Democrat just wins Clark County by about 6 percentage points, they can win Nevada, even though most of the remaining counties (except for Washoe) are staunchly Republican. In 2010, Harry Reid won Clark County by about 12-13 points and in 2008, Obama won Clark County by somewhere around 19 points. Harry Reid won the statewide race by about 6 points, and Obama won his statewide race by about 12.5 points.
In any case, here are the updated numbers. I'm going to focus only on the vote counts from Washoe County (Reno) and Clark County (Las Vegas area) in this diary because they will account for just shy of 90% of all the votes in this election. In tomorrow's diary I will try and track the statewide vote counts as well, but not all counties report as quickly as Washoe and Clark.
First let's start with Washoe County. I have very fond memories of visting Reno as a child. Its nickname is "The Biggest Little City in the World." I remember my brother and I being in awe of Circus Circus there. But I digress.
Here are the in-person numbers from Washoe County so far:
Dems 16,782 (43.2%)
Reps 15,809 (40.71%)
Inds/Oth 6,243 (16.08%)
TOTAL 38,834
And here are the numbers including the mail-in ballots:
Dems 19,687 (42.91%)
Reps 18,776 (40.92%)
Inds/Oth 7,420 (16.17%)
TOTAL 45,883
There are 241,549 active voters in Washoe County so this represents 19% of those voters. That's a pretty huge amount, considering this report includes only 5 early voting days and we are still about two weeks away from election day.
Now I will tell you that these numbers are markedly different from how they were in 2008. Democrats in Washoe County completely dominated the early voting period from beginning to end during that election. I know because I followed the early voting counts obsessively back then. This phenomenon culminated in Democrats holding an early voting edge of 48.9% to the Republicans' 34.3% in the entire early voting period in Washoe County just prior to eleciton day. Now you may ask whether perhaps Democrats had a greater voter registration advantage back then.
Here is a comparison of voters from 2008 to 2012:
2008 - Washoe County
Dems 92,188
Reps 90,910
2012 - Washoe County
Dems 90,779
Reps 91,948
So as we can see, there was very little change between the two parties from 2008 to 2012. So it is clear that Republicans are "voting their numbers" in Washoe County, at least at this point in the early voting period.
Here is a link to the Washoe early voting statistics so you can track them: http://www.co.washoe.nv.us/...
And now, let's take a look at the numbers from Clark County, otherwise known as the only numbers that really matter. Just kidding.
Through five days, here are the early voting numbers:
Dems 76,660 (50.67%)
Reps 47,961 (31.70%)
Inds/Oth 26,672 (17.63%)
TOTAL 151,293
Here are the new early votes since the previous daily report:
Dems +14,930
Reps +9,728
Inds/Oth +5,903
TOTAL 30,561
Here are the early voting numbers, including mail-in ballots:
Dems 89,056 (49.92%)
Reps 58,564 (32.83%)
Inds/Oth 30,771 (17.25%)
TOTAL 178,391
This amount of votes represents 21% of the 851,803 active voters in Clark County. That is huge.
Here is a link to the Clark County report: http://redrock.clarkcountynv.gov/...
In Clark County, Democrats make up about 46% of active voters whereas Republicans make up about 31% of active voters, so we can clearly see that Democrats in Clark County are overperforming in the early vote count. These are very solid numbers for us in Clark County so far.
But how do they compare with 2008? The only numbers I have right now are for the end of the voting period. Democrats trounced Republicans about 52% to 30% that year. You can follow the same link from above in the Washoe section to find those numbers from 2008.
And now for Goodie Number Two, although it sort of pains me to write about it. It is an article which reported on early voting in Clark County from 2004. It is kind of pathetic.
If three days of early voting can constitute a trend, Democrats think the beginning of the election in Nevada bodes well for a John Kerry victory.
In Clark County, Democrats voted in greater numbers than Republicans on each of the first three days of the 14-day early voting period. Overall, Democrats had a lead of 2,104 voters.
Democrats increased turnout on each of the days, edging Republicans 45 to 41 percent Saturday, 45 to 40 percent Sunday and 46 to 40 percent Monday.
Sigh. Back in 2004, Democrats held a registration advantage of roughly 44% to 37% over Republicans in Clark County, so these numbers are pretty awful because it's clear Republicans were overperforming their percentage during the early voting period that year. It's pitiful we thought we were going to win Nevada based off these numbers. Pitiful, I tell you.
Here is a link to that article: http://www.reviewjournal.com/...
In any case, I believe as a whole we are looking good in Nevada. The main difference between this year, and say, 2004, is that back when John Kerry was running, the Republicans actually had a statewide voter registration advantage of about 2,000. Currently there are over 90,000 more Democrats than Republicans among active voters in Nevada. (Democrats make up roughly 42% of voters and Republicans make up roughly 35% of voters)
For instance, let's say we lose Independent voters 53% to 44% as the PPP poll from earlier today suggested. Even if we lose independent voters in this fashion, we should be fine as long as we get out the vote.
The cross tabs on election day could very well look like this:
Obama Plastic Man
Dems (42%) 90% 9%
Reps (35%) 8% 90%
Inds (23%) 44% 53%
Which would result in: 50.72% 47.47%
So as we can see, even if we lose independents by a significant margin, it should not be enough to offset our large voter registration advantage over Republicans, as long as we continue to get out the vote. So the goal here for the Obama campaign is pretty simple: break even if possible in Washoe (or even win!) and run up the margins in Clark. My prediction is that Obama will win Clark County by 10-12 points which pretty much guarantees victory in The Silver State. Btw, the unemployment rate is still extremely high in Nevada, which would explain why we might lose the Indies there (even though everyone here knows who is really to blame for the jobs picture).
Enjoy.