John Ralston Nevada Report, great news for Republicans:

Updated, 10:15 PM, 10/23/24

Good evening again, blog mates.

SOS is reporting today's ballots, and I now feel like I am in the upside-down world. In past cycles, I would be telling you how the Dems were slowly building a firewall in Clark (tens of thousands more ballots than Republicans). They have successfully done this in every presidential election since 2008.

But the opposite is happening: Thanks to a rural tsunami, the GOP has moved out to a substantial ballot lead:

18,500 ballots, or almost 5 points

The rural firewall, the R advantage in the 15 smaller counties:

21,000 ballots,

The Clark firewall is at 5,000, or just 2.5 points in a place where Dems have a nearly 7 percentregistration edge.

In Washoe, the swing urban county, Rs have a 4 point lead, just above their registration advantage.

Nearly 400,000 people have cast ballots, or just under 20 percent of registered voters. =If turnout is1.4 million out of the 2 million registered voters, that means almost 30 percent of the vote is in.==

There is no good news in these numbers for Dems, who are basing their hopes on a deluge of mail ballots coming in during the final days and perhaps the day or two after the election (They can be counted for four days after Nov. 5.) and a very favorable split among indies in urban Nevada.

There are about 100,000 non-major party voters in the mix, or 12 percent of their total– that’s substantially lower than the turnout by both major parties and part of the reason I think we should discount most Nevada polls. No one knows how they will break, although Dems are optimistic because they skew young, as Andy Bloch has pointed out.

But even if Kamala Harris has a 10-point lead among indies in the current makeup of the electorate,if Trump is holding his base, he is ahead by 6,000votesor so. Not a lot, but a lead nevertheless.

Look at the urban/rural numbers:

The Rs have actually lost a few points off their rural lead – something to watch – but it’s still large enough (37 points) to produce a huge lead (21,000 votes). I still find it humorous that theDs have a slight turnout advantage in the rurals but are still getting crushed because of the overwhelming registration disadvantage. In the urban counties, the Rs have a turnout advantage, including 5 points in Clark and just under a point in Washoe.

Details:

Clark is turning out at about 3 points under its shareof the electorate while Washoe is about 1 point below and the rurals are now 4 points above their share. That explains the GOP lead pretty succinctly. Seems unlikely that will hold as Clark ballots pour in, but we shall see.

I expect another mail dump late tonight that will help the Dems, but the Rs will still have a big lead when we wake up tomorrow.

Sweet dreams, blog mates.

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-2024