The Nevada Independent CEO and editor Jon Ralston said Friday on MSNBC that Republicans’ lead in early voting has sparked worry among Democrats.
Former President Donald Trump currently holds a 1.5% lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Nevada, according to the RealClearPolling average. Ralston, on “MSNBC Reports: Decision 2024,” said Democrats’ hopes for winning the state hinge upon there still being hundreds of thousands of votes yet to be cast and an expectation that independents will largely back Harris, given Republicans’ current lead.
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“Polling has gotten even more unreliable, believe it or not, in Nevada, than it has been in past cycles, and it’s been bad before, because the entire demographics of the state have changed and there are now more independents voters than there are in the major parties,” Ralston said. “So what’s happening now is you have a significant amount of the early vote as you guys are showing right now in maybe 2/3, 70% of the entire vote may be in already, and something unusual has happened this cycle, and that is that instead of telling you about how many votes the Democrats have banked in their early vote, it’s the Republicans who have banked a lot of votes, early vote, in person and by mail.”
“And the reason for that is they kind of woke up from 2020, and said, ‘Oh, maybe we should be early voting and using mail to our advantage,’ and so they have done a very good job getting front loading their vote this time, and they have just under a 5% lead statewide, which has caused a lot of concern for Democrats whose only real hope is that there’s still four or 500,000 votes out there, and those independents I told you about, they believe they’re going strongly for Kamala Harris,” he added.
Republicans are up nearly 50,000 votes, which is around 5%, according to a blog post by Ralston on Thursday evening.
“The Dems held their own, even won Clark County for the first time by a little Wednesday,” Ralston wrote. “But can they, as they traditionally do, fare well in the last two days of early voting and will the postman, who has been running twice every day, have an overflowing satchel of mail? The share of the vote held by indies also keeps increasing, which should help the Dems, but is it enough?”
“My gut and the data/history tell me it could be close,” he added. “But I tend to agree with GOP operative Jeremy Hughes, who posits that if the final GOP ballot lead gets much over 25,000, big trouble for Dems in trying to turn around this battleship.”
Trump also leads Harris slightly in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, according to the RealClearPolling averages. Harris only holds slim leads in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Newsmax political analyst Mark Halperin said on Friday that Harris’ only viable path to an Electoral College victory may be to sweep Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, given her deficits in the Sun Belt states.
“For a time when she replaced [President] Joe Biden, there was some talk of perhaps the Sun Belt strategy is a better one for her as compared to Joe Biden,” Halperin said. “But if they’re not 100% down to winning Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, they’re pretty close to it at this point.”
“As her chances of winning the four bigger Sun Belt states have receded, that gives Trump more options to get to 270,” he added.
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