This is the second in a series of state by state voter registration diaries that I have decided to do rather than an omnibus ones I had done in months past (the first state diary I did before this one was for the state of North Carolina).
By devoting a diary to a single state at a time, I hope that I can not only make the reading of the raw numbers more simple but more importantly, that the information is more in depth and more informative by being able to provide some commentary regarding those numbers for that state. In that vein I will try to provide more of a long term history of the voter registration numbers for each of the states, both over the past year and just as importantly in comparison to the final numbers from the 2004 election with accompanying raw vote totals from the election results in those states that year.
That having been said onto the numbers for today's state Nevada.
Nevada
Dems Reps Ind
1/08 407,420 395,942 142,846
5/08 437,543 387,523 140,974
6/08 446,003 390,443 144,489
7/08 455,036 394,366 148,317
8/08 458,877 397,172 150,396
9/08 498,143 417,477 168,606
Some interesting facts, in January, 2008, registered Democrats comprised 40.8% of the registered electorate in Nevada and Republicans comprised 39.7% of the registered electorate, for a measly difference of only +1.1% for the Dems (by the way Indies made up 14.3%). Now as of September, 2008, Democrats comprise 43.60% of the registered electorate while Republicans share has dwindled to 36.54%, for a difference now of +7.06% for the Dems (Indies share has increased to 14.76%)!
So where was Nevada in 2004? In short, the state was pretty evenly divided with a slight edge to Republicans. On election day November, 2004, there were 429,808 registered Democrats, 434,239 registered Republicans, and 161,620 registered Indies. Thus, Democrats accounted for 40.1% of the registered electorate, Republicans 40.5%, and Indies 15%.
Bush beat Kerry in Nevada by close to 21,500 votes or by a percentage of 51% to 48%. Exit polls showed that among those showing up at the polls that day, 39% were Republicans, 35% Democrats, and 26% Indies. In other words, Republicans, who had been able to retain their lead among registered voters performed pretty much close to their share of the electorate, but Democrats, who had been trying to play catch up all year long, underperformed. Surprisingly, the one group that overperformed were Indies.
So where does this put Nevada today? I think that the trend numbers in voter registration, especially those over the past 9 months, indicate a much stronger presence of Democrats at the polls this year than as compared to 2004. Democrats have well surpassed the share of the electorate they had in 2004 while Republicans (and to a lesser extent Indies) are at well below their share of the electorate from 2004. Right now I'd say that Nevada looks very good for Democrats this year. The only thing that keeps me from being too confident is what happened in 2004. Kerry's campaign made large strides to catch up (even if they fell short in surpassing the Republicans) in the voter registration numbers, but come election day many Democrats simply just did not show up. Perhaps this was due to some shared belief that Bush was going to or at least had a better shot of winning in 2004 and thereby surpressed some Democrats from turning out that year. It is that underperformance in 2004 that keeps me from being too sure about Senator Obama's prospects of winning in Nevada.
That said, the difference between the parties in terms of the share of the electorate is perhaps the largest it has been for either party in that state for a long time, Democrats have an over 7% edge over Republicans in the state. That kind of difference in terms of which party people are registering with should be a giant red flag to the Republicans that their chances in Nevada are nowhere near as good as they were in 2004, and that was a relatively close election. Finally, while Kerry tried to play catch up in the voter registration numbers, the share of the electorate between the parties barely changed throughout 2004. In January, 2004, Republicans represented 41.6% of the electorate, while Democrats accounted for 40.1% of the electorate. When the final registration numbers were in the differences were minimal --- Republicans accounted for 41.5% of the electorate while Democrats accounted for 40.1% (the same was true of Indies who started 2004 with a 15.1% share and ended with a 15% share). In other words the registration numbers in terms of percentage of the electorate remained stable. That is certainly not the case this year in Nevada with the Democrats rocketing upward in terms of capturing the share of the electorate, while the Republicans are rapidly losing their share of the electorate.