Early Voting in Nevada Signals Tight Race

Early voting in Nevada suggests a tight race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, according to a Breitbart News analysis of voting data.

By Tuesday, registered Republicans had cast 208,219 early or absentee votes, while registered Democrats had cast 238,816 votes and independents had cast 114,867 votes. That’s almost sixty percent of the 1 million ballots cast in 2012. 

The registration of the early voters who have cast their ballots so far is 37.1 percent Republican, 42.5 percent Democratic, and 20.4 percent independent.

But some Republicans are going to vote Clinton, and some Democrats are going to vote for Trump, and independent votes are going to be split for both candidates.

Pollsters working for Investor’s Business Daily and the The Washington Post have come up with a poll-tested measure of the splits.

The Daily‘s national poll predicts Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each keep 87 percent of their partisan supporters in Florida, gain 4 percent or 5 percent from the other party, and lose 8 percent or 9 percent to third-party candidates. According to IBD’s estimates, Trump gets 44.2 percent of Nevada’s early votes, while Clinton grabs 45 percent of the early votes, and third party candidates are left with 10.6 percent.

The Post‘s estimated splits, however, predict a Trump win, of 46.6 percent to Clinton’s 45.7 percent, leaving 7.6 to the third-party candidates.

The Post predicts Trump gets 88 percent of Republicans, plus 6 percent of Democrats, plus 51 percent of independents. Clinton gets 87 percent of Democrats, plus 8 percent of Republicans, plus 36 percent of independents.

Generally, Democrats need to rack up big wins in the main urban county in the state, Clark County, which includes the city of Las Vegas, to grab the state’s 6 electoral votes. In 2012, that county cast 692,262 votes, or roughly 68 percent of the state’s ballots.

In turn, Trump needs to maximize his expected wins in the rural counties and in the second-largest county, Washoe, which is home to the city of Reno and almost 18 percent of the state’s voters.

In 2012, the Democrats led in early voting, and the final Democratic advantage in Clark County was 97,000 votes, or roughly 16 percent of the county and city. Gov. Mitt Romney lost the state in 2012 with 47.4 percent of the vote to President Barack Obama’s 50.5 percent.

The average of surveyed polls at Real Clear Politics show Trump with a 1.4 percent lead over Clinton.