First the 2016 numbers. In 2016 the Nevada presidential election results were:
Clinton 539,260 (47.9%) Trump 512,058 (45.5%) Johnson 37,384 (3.3%) Others 36,683
The voter registration roles showed: (numbers are from January 2017...the earliest I could find)
Democrats Republican American Independent Libertarian Nonpartisan Other Total
631,964 527,620 71,513 15,085 340,431 18,571 1,605,184
(39.4%) (32.9%)
So, Clinton won by 2.4 % and voter turnout was 70% of registered voters.
Now lets look at the registration numbers for 2020.
Democrats Republican American Independent Libertarian Nonpartisan Other Total
741,963 626,143 88,973 20,009 473,296 22,233 1,972,617
(37.6%) (31.7%)
The difference between 2016 and 2020 is:
Democrats Republican American Independent Libertarian Nonpartisan Other Total
+109,999 +98,523 +17,460 +4,924 +132,865 +3662 +367,433
So, Democrats have gained in absolute numbers over Republicans since 2016 which should be very helpful to Biden
Now lets look at the early vote numbers for 2020. So far, this is who has voted in Nevada.
Democrats Republican Nonpartisan/Third party Total
294,244 239,779 153,683 694,347 (note that 740,142 people voted, but some people didn’t choose any candidate for president.)
From polling results (www.investors.com/… ) we see that Democrats split about 96% Biden and 4% Trump. Republicans split 93% Trump and 4% Biden. Independents go 49% Biden and 42% Trump.
A reasonable assumption, based on 2016 numbers, is that about 35,000 of those Nonpartisan/third party votes went to third party candidates. That leaves 118,683 nonpartisan/third party votes to split up between Biden and Trump. Doing the math we get:
Biden 350,221 Trump 284,637 third party/unknown 35,000 (note that the total number of votes is less than 694,347 because we didn’t allocate all the votes from the Republicans and nonpartisan category)
So, Biden is probably about 65,000 votes ahead at this point. I think a 65,000 lead is a good educated estimate for where the race is right now. Even is this analysis is off by 20,000 votes it is still a substantial lead.
The Democrats have 447,719 voters that haven’t voted yet. The Republicans have 386,384 voters that haven’t voted, and there are 450,828 third party or nonpartisan voters left to vote. I just don’t see how Nevada can go for Trump given the state of the early vote. It isn’t impossible, but it is going to be very difficult for Republicans to make up 65,000 votes. Unless Republicans heroically outperform from here on out, or if the independents break much more for Trump than the polls indicate, then Biden will win If I were a betting man, AND I AM, I would bet that Biden wins by a bigger percentage than Clinton did in 2016.