Jon Ralston's Nevada Early Voting Blog - 10/28/20 - 5:15 p.m.
No new voter updates, but I took a deep dive into the rural vote and found some interesting data points.
So what does this tell us? A few things:
First, the Republicans are up in the rurals by 30,000 ballots and nearly 28 percentage points with about half the vote in. Trump won rural Nevada by nearly 58,000 votes in 2016. I have said it could be as much as 70,000 this cycle. I may have underestimated it.
Second, in 2016, Trump won rural Nevada by 65-28. If we apply those numbers to the current turnout, he actually is up in rural Nevada by more than 40,000 votes. Indies in the rurals lean right. Might the president get above 70,000 and closer to 80,000? It's possible.
Third, this shows just how different those 15 counties are from the urban ones. And even though the percentage margins are huge, consider: If one million voters turn out in Clark County — and this seems about right — and Biden wins Clark by 10 points (Clinton won it by almost 11), that's 100,000 votes. That easily offsets the rural win, even if it is 80,000, and that would mean Trump would need to win Washoe by 20,000 votes to have a chance. That is highly unlikely if not impossible — Clinton won Washoe by 3,000 votes and Biden may do better. He surely will not do that much worse unless something very strange is happening. (The Democrats have a 5,000-ballot lead in Washoe right now.)
Suppose I am overestimating the Clark turnout. Suppose it is only 900,000 (unlikely). Even then, under the same scenario Biden would be in good shape unless urban indies are breaking hard for Trump.
You see why it is so difficult for Republicans to drive up rural turnout enough to win statewide races if Democrats win Clark by 10 and hold their own in Washoe.
Here's the latest on the Votes Left chart, which shows how the Democratic turnout advantage is about to evaporate and shows why that voter registration lead they build every cycle is so important.
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-3
= new reply since forum marked as read
