Nevada Turning Blue

[Adlai Stevenson]

In the past year, Nevada Democrats have overtaken the Republicans' advantage in active registered voters, the Las Vegas Sun reports.

"As of August, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 2,800 'active voters,' a subset of total registration introduced last year that is considered more accurate because it counts only those voters whose addresses are still valid."

"Nevada Republicans had held the voter registration edge for the past three presidential elections. At the close of registration for the 2006 election, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by about 7,000 active voters."

[Tender Branson]

NV is unpredictable. This state is growing by 4% each year and a slim registration advantage can't be used as a indicator for a Democratic victory next year. But by and large, if the Democrat wins by 50-48% or so next year, I´d say NV flips too.

[Governor PiT]

Here we grow again! 47,912 members Statewide
Saturday, September 8th 2007 — Christopher Hansen
The last time I reported the IAP registration was in March. It has taken the Office of the Secretary of State since then to up date the voter lists through August.

In March we had, according to the Secretary of State’s office 45,480 total registered voters and 37,351 Active voters.

An active voter is basically a person who voted in the last election. This is, however deceiving since many people, even in leadership positions have been placed in the inactive vote lists, even though the voted (can you say voter fraud?) so I do not trust those numbers to be accurate.

As of August 31 the Independent American Party now has 47,912 total registered voters in Nevada and 39,936 Active voters.

The total number of registered voters in Nevada as of August 31 was 1,215,166 which means that the Independent American Party now has 3.94% of the total number of registered voters. This once again is significant because we not only grew by 2432 members, we grew by 0.15% from 3.79% in March.

The Republicans lost 0.22% while the Democrats grew by 0.05% meaning that once again the Independent American Party of Nevada is the fastest growing political party in the State.

To demonstrate how important these numbers are, even though they are still small in comparison to the twin party remember this:

The northern congressional race (2) in 2008 AD was decided by 5.41%.

District 3’s congressional race was decided by 1.89%.

The governor’s race was decided by 4.73%.

The State’s Control’s race was decided by 1.21%.

Assembly District 3 was decided by 1.88%

All of the IAP State wide candidates except me, running for governor, and Dave Schumann running for U.S. Senate (which are always the two most difficult races for the IAP) got an equivalent number of votes equal our TOTAL registration.

If you were wondering how the Libertarian party faired they had 7,928 total number of registered voters as of August growing by 162 from 7,766 which is 0.065% of the total number of registered voters.

We now outnumber the Libertarian party over 6 to one.

Democrats= 489,004 which is 40.24%

Republicans= 474,702 39.06%

Total= 1,215,166

This means we currently need to have 121,517 registered voters to become a MAJOR party, so we have a lot of work to do.

[Padfoot]

That only leaves roughly 15% of Nevada voters registered as unaffiliated/independent.  That seems like a really low number to me.  Does Nevada have an above average number of people who are registered party members or am I just being crazy?

[jimrtex]

That only leaves roughly 15% of Nevada voters registered as unaffiliated/independent.  That seems like a really low number to me.  Does Nevada have an above average number of people who are registered party members or am I just being crazy?

I think they have closed primaries and caucuses.

[Alcon]

That only leaves roughly 15% of Nevada voters registered as unaffiliated/independent.  That seems like a really low number to me.  Does Nevada have an above average number of people who are registered party members or am I just being crazy?

I think they have closed primaries and caucuses.

So does Oregon, yet about 30% are unaffiliated there.  Do you know why?

[Smash255]

NV is unpredictable. This state is growing by 4% each year and a slim registration advantage can't be used as a indicator for a Democratic victory next year. But by and large, if the Democrat wins by 50-48% or so next year, I´d say NV flips too.

When you look at past election results and compare them to the national average you really see a Dem trend

96 7.49% more gOP
00 4.06% more GOP
04  0.13% more GOP

[Person Man]

About damn time! Maybe things can start to get a little groovier there.

[jimrtex]

That only leaves roughly 15% of Nevada voters registered as unaffiliated/independent.  That seems like a really low number to me.  Does Nevada have an above average number of people who are registered party members or am I just being crazy?

I think they have closed primaries and caucuses.

So does Oregon, yet about 30% are unaffiliated there.  Do you know why?

According to the latest numbers from the Oregon Secretary of State Office, it is 22.2%

In Nevada, it is 14.6%.   In addition, 3.8% who are affiliated as "Independent American."  Many states do not recognize the term "independent", referring to voters without a party as "non-partisan", "unaffiliated", or "no party".  The former has a connotation of "decisive, able to make choices for themselves", while the latter imply "waffler", "ambivalent", or "undecided".   But in some states, persons have organized themselves as the "Independent Party" which attracts voters who simply think they are making an affirmative declaration of no party.  An example of one such case is Florida where the "Independent Party" apparently consists of 200,000 voters, and one individual who sent in the paperwork to organize the party, but has never conducted any partisan or nominating activity.  In recent years, an "Independence Party of Florida" has formed which apparently has an intent to have a more formal organization (it at least has web site).

In Nevada, some voters may register as "Independent American" without realizing that it is an actual party.  There is a noticeable difference in affiliation among Active and Inactive voters (Inactive voters are mostly those who didn't participate in the 2004-5 election cycle):

Democrat: Active 40.3%, Inactive 40.7%
Republican: Active 40.0%, Inactive 33.9%
Non-Partisan: Active 14.6%, Inactive 19.7%
Independent American: Active 3.8%, Inactive 4.4%.

After the end of this year, I suspect that Republicans will once again take the lead in registration in Nevada, as registered voters who did not vote in the 2006-7 election cycle are converted to Inactive voters.  This has happened on a regular basis over the last decade (in 2002, there were 20,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in Nevada).

Reasons for the 3 to 7% difference between Oregon and Nevada might be due to a number of reasons.  Oregon might be more influenced by Washington, which not only does not have party registration has broad and active opposition to party registration or exclusive party primaries.  The Oregon voter registration form notes that some parties may not permit non-affiliated voters to participate in their primaries.  I couldn't find a Nevada registration form.  There may be more involvement of political parties in the registration process in Nevada.  With its huge growth, there would be an incentive to get people involved.  People in Oregon might be more civic-minded on average, and register themselves.

PS since the start of 2007, Oregon has started reporting registration for an "Independent" party.  The other parties, even the Green Party, give the name of party officers, and a web site.  The "Independent" party lists only a person's name and address.

[Person Man]

Yeah, Nevada seems to have trouble getting into the blue column, then again, it did vote the national average, so maybe if the dems win the popular vote, Nevada will be carried.

[Person Man]

It could be just that who wins the indies wins the whole thing.

[Gustaf]

Red, turning red, dammit.

[KEmperor]

[Padfoot]

You're so shocked you're choking to death?

[DanielX]

C'mon Nevada, thing's aren't that bad... no need to be blue....

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

C'mon Nevada, thing's aren't that bad... no need to be blue....

Yes they are that bad. GOP rule hurts this country no matter what region you're in.

[pbrower2a]

How did the GOP lose Nevada?

1. Nevada has a population heavily concentrated in two urban areas: Las Vegas and Reno-Sparks-Carson City. The rest of Nevada is frontier -- ranching, mining, and irrigated farming. Sagebrush votes Republican; concrete votes Democratic.  People live where the concrete is. Big cities need big government just to meet the needs of transportation, and have more costly law enforcement and education. The GOP leadership has not caught onto that fact, and it has thus thrown away a state that a bunch of right-wing city-slickers think of as nothing more than sagebrush, luxury hotels, casinos, and Hoover Dam. The GOP leadership ignored the people.

Urban areas voted for Obama; rural areas voted for McCain. Nevada has comparatively little rural population.

2. The fast-growing Mexican-American population includes many new young voters. It's hard to see how the GOP could have so fumbled the Mexican-American population as severely as it did -- but it so did. The nativist rhetoric hit US citizens of Mexican descent. That population is assimilating quickly, but it still has its sensibilities. The Republican Party had been making gains among Mexican-Americans until 2008.

3. The financial meltdown hit Nevada -- late. People with comparatively low incomes had bought into what they thought the American dream: ownership of a house. That is an unusually strong pattern among Mexican-Americans: they buy houses as soon as they qualify for a loan at the expense of much else. That strengthens family life and gives advantages to children -- but it also makes them vulnerable to any meltdown in housing values.

The biggest fumbles in America in 2008 weren't in NFL football, and Nevada has no professional football teams. The GOP fumbled Nevada to the Democratic Party, perhaps for several electoral cycles.       

[Sbane]

Until republicans figure out how to not get crushed among latino, they can forget about carrying Nevada.

[pbrower2a]

Until republicans figure out how to not get crushed among latino, they can forget about carrying Nevada.

The Republican Party seems to have fumbled away the Latino vote almost as badly as the Detroit Lions Losers (0-16) football team  pick-up squad fumbled away the 2008 season.

[bgwah]

Until republicans figure out how to not get crushed among latino, they can forget about carrying Nevada.

They're still working on the black vote...

[Lunar]

Are they?