Nevada 3 is one of those districts you expect to be competitive. Composed of only sections of Clark County outside central Las Vegas, it was designed to be such - Gore won this district in 2000, but went
50-49 for Bush in '04.
Yesterday, I parsed down a similar RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics from FL-22 - I will do this with the Hafen-Porter matchup, which the poll pegs at 51-43 Porter, which is outside the MoE. Porter's strong-lean breakdown is 42-9; Hafen's 37-7.
Btw, you can watch Hafen's new ad here, although you would have to forgive the mis-syncing of the audio and video. (It looks really strange.)
Breakdown of the poll after the flip.
Republican Jon Porter has never really faced a serious challenge since being elected in 2002, defeating his underfunded opponent 56-37 then and 55-40 to Tom Gallagher in '04. This year is different: former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (who's hometown, Searchlight, is in this district), Tessa Hafen (D), is running, and has strong fundraising to make it close.
So the good news? Much like the poll yesterday, this poll also underrepresents the number of Democrats, overrepresents the number of Republicans. Unlike yesterday, it also overrepresents the number of Independents. Similarly, the effect is Porter gets better numbers than he would have, had a more representative sample been used!
The partisan breakdown of the RT poll is 44R, 35D, 21I. There are 352,148 active voters in this district as of the pre-primary registration closing, according to the Nevada Secretary of State's website. Of these, 141,053 happen to be Republicans, 142,669 are Democrats, and the balance Independents. This comes down to 40.1% Republican, 40.5% Democratic, and 19.1% Independent. Yes sirs and madams, there are more Dems than Reps in this district, although the poll certainly wouldn't have you believe that!
The state of the Republicans is 68% Strong Porter, 10% Lean Porter; 11% Strong Hafen, 3% Lean Hafen.
Democrats break down: 18%-2% Porter, 68%-10% Hafen; Indies are 26%-19% Porter, 38%-8% Hafen.
Using these numbers, and adjusting the partisan ID, we get this:
39.6% of voters strongly support Jon Porter; an additional 8.5% lean toward him.
39.3% of voters strongly support Tessa Hafen; an additional 6.8% lean toward her.
Summing this up, we get: 48.1% Porter to 46.1% Hafen...which is WELL within the MoE!
(There is a 95% chance Porter's true level of support is 45.0-51.2, Hafen's 43.0-49.2.)
Again, the key findings:
-Hafen is down by just 2 points, not 8 points as the poll would suggest after normalizing the partisan distribution.
-42% of the independents supporting Porter are only leaning towards him. A shift of half these voters would result is a shift of 1.8% of the vote, again, enough to swing the election.
-Bush approval in this district is 39-52 disapproval according to the poll, adjusted this number is 37-55 disapproval.
-This race is VERY close.
-Incidentally, if Tessa Hafen wins here, Jill Derby(D) beats Dean Heller in NV-02, and Shelley Berkeley(D) wins relection in her Las Vegas NV-01, Nevada would have an all-Democratic-women delegation!
Thoughts and comments?