We’re still 12 days from Election Day, so it may seem a little premature to start looking at vote totals. On the other hand, as The New Republic’s Ryan Lizza noted, early voting in Nevada (swing state, 5 electoral votes) is very encouraging.
A third of the way through a two-week window for early voting, more than 72,000 Nevadans have made it to the polls — with Democrats leading Republicans in total turnout in counties where most of the state’s voters live.
A breakdown of the totals from Clark, Washoe, Carson City and Douglas counties, with 91 percent of all Nevada voters, shows the early voters through midday Wednesday included 31,853 Democrats and 30,488 Republicans. The rest of the voters were nonpartisans or splinter-party members.
A breakdown shows 63,198 of the early voters were in the state’s biggest city, Las Vegas, with 45 percent registered as Democrats and 41 percent as Republicans. For both parties, that’s slightly above their overall registration percentages for the area.
The surprise was in Washoe County, a strongly Republican area where the midweek total of early voters was 4,516–1,998 Democrats and 1,875 Republicans.
GOP voters, at 43 percent, were just slightly above their overall registration–but Democrats, with 44 percent of the early vote total, were well above their overall 36 percent of all Washoe County voters registered for the general elections.
Democrats voted early in Carson City in line with their total registration–34 percent–and at a slightly higher rate in Douglas County. Republicans in both counties voted early at levels higher than their overall registration percentages–particularly Douglas, where 68 percent of early voters were Republicans. That compares with their overall registration of 56 percent.
“John Kerry is winning the state right now, and we’re ecstatic,” said Kerry’s Nevada campaign spokesman, Sean Smith. “Democrats are outvoting Republicans and we’re outvoting them in Washoe County. That’s very significant.”
It’s earlier than early, but at a minimum, this should be a) a morale boost, and b) a reminder that GOTV operations will be the difference between winning and losing. In Nevada, at least so far, our side is looking very strong.