CARSON CITY, Nev. As of Sunday night, Nevada had counted just under 400,000 ballots for the Nov. 3 general election, about 20 percent of the state’s active registered voters, according to the Nevada Independent’s early voting blog. Democrats held a statewide lead of at least 19,400 ballots, a margin the blog’s tracker put at just under 5 percentage points.
That lead grew fast. Entering the weekend, the same tracker had Republicans trailing by just under 13,000 ballots. By Sunday night the Democratic edge had grown to at least 19,400, a jump of about 49 percent over two days, by this outlet’s calculation, a swing the blog’s own tracker rounded to “about 50 percent.”
Saturday’s results did most of the work. The blog’s Sunday morning update showed the Democratic lead growing from 3.8 to 4.5 percentage points over the course of Saturday, pushing the raw ballot lead to 16,864. Turnout had reached 375,492, or about 18 percent of the state’s active voters, with Democrats taking 39.8 percent of ballots cast to Republicans’ 35.3 percent, with the remaining quarter going to nonpartisan and third-party voters.
Running Ahead of the 2022 Pace
The blog’s own comparison puts Democrats ahead of where they stood in the 2022 midterm. At the same point in the two-week early voting calendar four years ago, Democrats held just a 3.1 percentage point lead. That makes this year’s 4.5 point reading from Saturday about 1.4 percentage points wider than 2022’s, by this outlet’s calculation.
That comparison carries a warning built into it. The same tracker reported that statewide early voting numbers were “essentially even” once the 2022 early voting period concluded, only for Election Day itself to break hard toward Republicans, who won Election Day ballots by nearly 50,000, a margin of roughly 2 to 1, according to the blog.
A Governor’s Race Decided by 15,386 Votes
Even that Election Day wave did not sweep every race. Nevada’s certified 2022 general election results show Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, held on to beat Republican Adam Laxalt by 7,928 votes, a margin of 0.77 percentage points. Gov. Steve Sisolak, also a Democrat, lost his re-election bid to Republican Joe Lombardo by a wider spread: 15,386 votes, a margin of 1.51 percentage points.
| 2022 race | Winner | Margin (votes) | Margin (points) |
|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Senate | Cortez Masto (D) | 7,928 | 0.77 |
| Governor | Lombardo (R) | 15,386 | 1.51 |
Both races ran through the same statewide early vote environment and the same Election Day wave described above. The Senate race held for Democrats anyway; the governor’s race did not.
Why the Governor’s Race Is the One to Watch
This year it is the governor’s race drawing the closest scrutiny, not the Senate. Lombardo is seeking a second term against Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford, and the Cook Political Report rates the race a Toss Up. An Oct. 6 poll from Noble Predictive Insights put Lombardo at 42 percent and Ford at 40 percent among likely voters, with independent candidate Danielle Ford at 7 percent, a gap inside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.68 percentage points.
The early vote itself carries its own asterisks. As of Saturday, Clark County, whose registration accounts for 72.6 percent of the state’s active voters, had cast only 66.4 percent of ballots so far, while Washoe County and the state’s rural counties were both turning out above their registration share, 19.5 percent of ballots against 15.7 percent of registration in Washoe, and 14 percent against 11.7 percent in the rurals.
Nevada’s early voting runs through Oct. 30, with mail ballots due to be postmarked by Nov. 3 and received within four business days after. Most of a week remains before this weekend’s numbers can be read as a preview of who wins the governor’s race, let alone anything else on the ballot.
