This shows why Nevada will be no easy feat for Republicans. Even if they improve more in the rurals and flip Washoe, they pretty much need to bring Clark within 8.5% to have a chance at winning the state, and within 6.5% if Washoe keeps voting Democratic by a few points. And that's assuming that rural turnout stays high and Republicans don't lose ground there.
By improving by 10 points or so in rural counties, the Dems could win Washoe by under a point and win Clark by 9 points and the GOP could still eek out a narrow win.
A 10-point improvement throughout the rurals is also a very heavy lift, especially in counties where Republicans are already over 80%. It just shows that the path is very narrow, and many things have to go just right for them.
True but nowhere near impossible. I do suspect Clark County will slowly grow more GOP over time. Trump did improve in the county by a couple points compared to his 2016 margin. 1% in Clark County is equal to about 9,500 votes. If the margin in Clark drops down to exactly six points and nothing else changes, the GOP wins the state by 160 votes.
I think that Trump came pretty close to the Republican ceiling in Clark, and given how young and diverse it is, it’s not going to keep trending Republican.
Similar things were said about Miami-Dade before 2020. It’s foolish to assume that a county can’t possibly trend R just because it’s populous, diverse, and unionized, and the very few people on this forum who assume that Nevada's R trend will continue this decade largely expect R inroads into Clark (more so than further gains in the rural/small-town areas or even significant R gains in Washoe County) to constitute the foundation/prerequisite for any Republican statewide victory.
