Democrats slightly ahead in ballots cast after 1st week of early vote

The first week of early voting in Nevada’s 2022 midterms told us what we’ve known about the races all along — things are going to be very close come Election Day for the state’s closely watched races for U.S. Senate, governor and more.

According to the Nevada secretary of state’s office, 119,282 Democrats cast their ballots through Friday, which marked the end of the first week of Nevada’s two-week early voting window, compared to 110,101 Republicans. That’s an advantage of about 9,200 voters for the Democrats, which is about a 3.1 percentage point lead of the ballots cast, 40.4 percent to 37.3 percent.

As of the end of the first week of early voting Friday, 20.1 percent of Democrats and 20.2 percent of Republicans have cast their ballots.

With the partisan vote being so close, nonpartisan voters are going to play a huge role in determining the outcomes of those key races. So far, just less than 50,000 nonpartisans have voted as well, which makes up about 16.7 percent of the total vote and about 9.3 percent of all registered nonpartisans in Nevada.

All but one of Nevada’s 17 counties were included in the secretary of state’s tallies, with Pershing County being the lone exception. The secretary of state’s office did not immediately respond to questions about why Pershing was not included. But that omission wouldn’t have a large impact on the overall numbers, as there are just about 3,100 total registered voters in the rural county.

Democrats have relied on their “blue wall” of Clark County, where they hold a registration advantage of more than 120,000, to fend off Republican registration advantages in the rural corners of the state, and since 2016 that wall has stood fairly firm.

Through the first week, Democrats hold a lead of just under 20,000 votes in Clark County and accounted for 43.4 percent of the votes compared to 33.6 percent of Republicans.

Past election turnout

How does this compare to previous elections? It’s hard to say. Nevada switched to a system where all active registered voters are mailed ballots as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the Democratically-held Legislature made the change permanent in 2021.

The first year with mail ballots happened during both a presidential election, which typically draws far more voters than midterms, and during a pandemic.

While there was no universal mail-ballot system in 2018, the vote totals through the first week of early voting in that year’s midterm elections are fairly similar to what Nevada is seeing this year.

That year, about 129,000 Democrats voted during the first week of early voting (which includes about 16,000 total mail-in and absentee ballots) compared to 124,290 Republicans. That was a lead of about 1.4 percentage points for the Democrats, who went on to sweep all but one statewide race that year — the race for secretary of state — and take a supermajority in one chamber of the state Legislature.

That 2018 cycle also had a slightly better turnout through that first week for both parties. That year, 21.5 percent of registered Democrats and 23.8 percent of registered Republicans had voted by the end of the first week of early voting.

There has been a lot of talk nationally about a potential “wave” year for Republicans, similar to 2014. That year, with no presidential or U.S. Senate race on the ticket, Republicans swept the statewide constitutional races.

But Republicans in 2014 were much farther ahead then than they are at this point in 2022. That year, the GOP had a vote lead of more than 10 percentage points, or about 13,000 votes, after the first week of voting.

But what remains to be seen this year is if the baseless claims of mail ballots leading to massive voter fraud pushed by Republicans since Donald Trump’s 2020 loss will cause more Republicans to vote in person.

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.