Rate Nevada

[MargieCat]

My guess is tossup, with a slight tilt R.

Of course it is...

[MargieCat]

^I like how "Tossup, with a slight tilt R" is deemed some bold/hackish prediction for this race on here, lol.

Anyway...

Safe 'This race will cause people to lose their minds'

Tossup between AZ-SEN and NV-SEN in the race for 'most insufferable analysis/conventional wisdom of any race'

I'd say it's somewhere between a democratic tilt and a democratic lean.

Republicans haven't gotten lucky in Nevada in years. With the exception of a secretary of state race in 2018, democrats typically have the advantage in this state.

It's such a small state, with the population centering in Clark and Washoe counties.

While the margins are typically close, democrats only need to win Clark by just over 6 points if the other margins stay the same in the rural areas. They won Clark by 9.54% this election. As long as the democrats run up the numbers in Clark, they win the race.

And you have to remember that she is Catherine Cortez Masto, the only Latina senator. Of course all the doomers and hacks on here will say "With the Hispanics trending right, she is DOA"

[MargieCat]

Sisolak just signed a permanent mail-in voting system into law.

That might have just shored up CCM for re-election.

[MargieCat]

Sisolak just signed a permanent mail-in voting system into law.

That might have just shored up CCM for re-election.

Right, because as 2020 proved, high turnout undoubtedly always benefits Democrats. Not like Nevada was one of five states to swing R that year either.

It barely swang right from 2016.

A lot of that was said to be due to COVID shutdowns and wanting to get the hospitality industry going. I also think there was an incumbency bump among Hispanics but can't find the 2016 exit polls for that state.

Either way, mailing ballots out to every household in the state is going to help the democrats. A lot of republicans will probably throw their mail-in ballot in the trash with the intent of showing up in-person at the polls on election day to vote for Laxalt or whoever the GOP puts up. That is, if they don't forget.

[MargieCat]

Sisolak just signed a permanent mail-in voting system into law.

That might have just shored up CCM for re-election.

Nah, the 2020 Presidential Election is the only recent election we should ever consider when analyzing Nevada, and its massive 0.03% Republican swing is proof that Masto will easily go down if the environment is a mere 2.391% more Republican than it was in 2020, according to the law of universal swing (that gave us Senator Sharron Angle.)

Margin (Margin compared to national)

2020

Pres: D+2 (R+2)
House: D+2 (R+1)

2018

Sen: D+5
House: D+5 (R+3)

2016

Pres: D+2 (D+0)
Sen: D+2
House: D+1 (D+2)

2012

Pres: D+6 (D+2)
Sen: R+1
House: R+0 (R+1)

Nevada voting to the right of the country in both 2018 and 2020, and it trending Republican in the last few midterms, has not pleased people. If Democrats are favored for 2022, we would need a good explanation as to why, such as it will be a bad year for Republicans, or the Democratic candidates are exceptionally good. But we haven't gotten that, just insistence that Nevada will continue voting narrowly Democratic and won't swing with the rest of the country.

I’ve given explanations.

1. It’s mathematically difficult for Republicans to win NV, since the rural counties are very close to maxed out. They either need to win Washoe and keep Clark within 9%, or narrowly lose Washoe and keep Clark within 7%. Neither is impossible, but neither is easy, given that turnout tends to be pretty good.

2. While candidate quality isn’t everything, Republicans don’t have an obvious candidate. Laxalt just barely won in 2014 while Democrats wrote off the state and Sandoval won by a huge margin.

3. There’s reason to believe Masto will do better than Biden did among Latinos.

4. People love pointing out the trend, especially the 2016-2018 trend. However, if we’re going to do that, we have to point out that it actually didn’t trend Republican from 2018-2020. Either way, huge Election Day turnout in the rural areas and an underwhelming performance for Democrats in Clark still wasn’t enough to flip it in 2016 or 2020. This would be like Democrats getting great numbers in Dane and Milwaukee, and improving significantly in WOW and still losing Wisconsin by 2 points. People probably wouldn’t spin that as good for Democrats, even if it represented a Democratic “trend”, relative to a given year.

These are all valid points.

Everyone on this board loves to look at the popular vote and what type of environment the year is.

For lots of states, that's valid. Especially in the rust belt states.

However, Nevada seems to be immune from waves and is almost static.

Democrats just have to run up the numbers in Clark and Washoe and they win. There's  not some giant rural population like in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin to contend with.

I also think Trump's performance in Vegas was probably pretty strong for a republican. They liked his showmanship.

[MargieCat]

It's laughable how so many on this forum act like Nevada is a Lean-R state.

Trump didn't even win it in 2016.

Yet Laxalt is favored to defeat CCM...