Jon Ralston's Nevada Early Voting Blog - 10/27/20 - 7:00 a.m.
The Clark firewall dipped slightly to 70,000 after I downloaded the mail file this morning. The Dems lost 3,800 in in-person voting and gained some but not all of it back in mail, so they lost about 1,000 off the firewall. This never happens, although my caveat is the mail file seems to update under no known algorithm.
But we have to use the numbers we have, and these are the latest: Dems lead by 90,650 in Clark mail and GOP leads in in-person voting by 20,650.
About 530,000 Clark County voters have cast ballots, or 45 percent. That's about equal to the number of early/mail voters who cast ballots for the entire 2016 election. More than half of the eventual vote is in.
You can see that despite the dip, the Dems are still well ahead of the 2016 pace, even if you extrapolate for the 200,000 new voters. As I have told you, the 10th and 11th days are traditionally the GOP’s strongest days in Clark County, so maybe that pattern is holding in 2020.
But I caution you: With the erratic mail-counting – I think it’s a staffing issue more than anything – and the uncertainty of Election Day turnout (that’s why I am tracking votes left), I can’t say for certain that any trend exists. You’d still rather be the Dems, but the smart ones on both sides know this is far from over.
The statewide Dem lead also will fall after the rurals are tallied. The Dems lost 1,400 off their lead in Washoe on Monday, and surely will lose a few thousand in the rurals after Monday’s totals. My estimate is that the statewide lead is now about 53K or so. I’ll have a more accurate number later.
So what does this mean?
I still think the Dems want to be well above 80,000 by the end of the week in Clark; if not, the race could be close. The Washoe number – Dems plus 6,000 – still looks good for them (it was 1,000 after early voting was complete in 2016), but the GOP took a chunk out of it Monday. At the same time in 2016, the Washoe lead was 2,300 voters; Washoe has about 15 percent more voters than four years ago, so the Dems are still well ahead of that pace even if you extrapolate.
It’s all about the indies, too, and if they break for the Dems in Washoe, Biden will win by a few points there, and that’s almost surely game over. But rural indies lean right, and if turnout grows there, the race could get interesting.
I don’t put much stock in polls right now – I prefer to look at the actual turnout – and this one that shows Biden by 9 isn’t even finished yet as you can see,. (Update: They decided to close out the poll on the 23rd despite what the site says.) But: If Biden is winning indies by 6, he will win Nevada.
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-3
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