The first week of early voting revealed a few trends that have surprised a great many political prognosticators, pundits and campaigns. Above all else is the revelation that Republicans have, apparently, decided to embrace the idea of early voting.
By Friday, it was clear that GOP voters were enthusiastic to show up early and cast their ballots — despite years of Trumpian Republicans discouraging such behavior and sowing doubts about the process.
The results from this newfound love for early voting have been pretty impressive. As The Nevada Independent’s CEO and Editor Jon Ralston described it, the early GOP advantage was “unheard of” in any other presidential election cycle, creating serious concerns for Democratic campaigns that had previously been considered near-locks.
No wonder national Republicans have decided to finally pour some last-minute money into the state for a U.S. Senate race they had otherwise largely ignored.
The early numbers certainly give Republicans reason for optimism, but there’s still plenty of uncertainty as we head into week two of early voting. Indeed, the only lesson to be confidently pulled from data in the first week is that, like most of the political news nowadays, there’s little about this election that can be considered “normal.”
For pundits, campaigns and strategists, this year’s relentlessly abnormal political environment is making Nevada an even harder state to really understand — as if it wasn’t already difficult enough with our transient electorate, the 24/7 tourism industry and large minority populations. Nevada has long flummoxed pollsters and professional political consultants with our fiercely independent electorate — but it might actually be getting even harder.
As Politico points out, the state’s explosion of voters who have decided to eschew both major parties has made things infinitely more complicated for activists and campaigns. As one get-out-the-vote organizer told Politico, “Polling [in Nevada] ain’t real… Nevada is a black box.”
Certainly, that has proven true in recent years. However, even if current polls are, somehow, a fairly accurate portrayal of voter sentiment in the Silver State, it’s still not much help. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have been stuck in a virtual tie or showing leads that are well within the margin of error, leaving experts with little more than historical trends upon which they can base their predictions of how things might shake out in November.
Based on those trends, one would think Democrats should be enjoying a bit of an advantage in the state’s “new normal” of universal mail-in balloting, early voting and automatic voter registration. After all, a large percentage of the state’s nonpartisan voters are those who have been automatically registered at the DMV — and a great many of them are younger voters who are far more likely to align with Democrats than Republicans, regardless of their official party affiliation.
Similarly, the growing influence of the state’s Latino community should have been an automatic advantage for a well-organized Democratic machine in the Silver State — and, make no mistake, the Democrats certainly have a well-organized political machine thanks to the efforts of the late U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.
None of those advantages matter much, however, if they don’t translate into actual votes — and based on the sheer number of Republican ballots cast last week, those votes are going to have to show up en masse for Democrats to keep their hopes alive. The fact that Democrats failed miserably to build a “firewall” last week is undoubtedly causing headaches among progressive strategists and candidates who were previously feeling fairly confident about the outlook for 2024.
However, Republicans shouldn’t get too comfortable with their “unheard of” early leads. Given the GOP’s general distrust of mail-in balloting, it’s reasonable to assume the Democratic Party will hold a sizable edge with voters who rely on the postal service to deliver their ballots — whether or not it will be enough to overcome their early deficit is really the only question.
What does all this mean? Well, it means you should probably read The Indy’s early voting blog on a daily basis if you want to keep up with the latest — or just cast your ballot, sit back and focus on something less anxiety-inducing between now and Nov. 5.
It also means that, like the rest of the election cycle so far, you should probably brace for more of the unexpected.
From the beginning, the only real constant in this election cycle has been its stark departure from historical norms. Political news has basically been a frantic parade of breaking headlines that are hardly the sort of thing we’re used to seeing in regular electoral cycles — including last-minute candidate swaps, surprise political endorsements and even assassination attempts. There’s little reason to think things are going to suddenly become predictable at this late date.
The Republican embrace of early voting is just one more reminder of how unexpected things have become in our current political universe. After all, who would have guessed the party that has relentlessly peddled conspiracy theories about early voting and mail-in ballots would be the ones building a substantial lead of early votes?
Maybe, just maybe, the Trumpian loyalists in the GOP have finally realized such reforms are useful for actually trying to win elections rather than merely scapegoating their previous losses.
Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.
