GOP Lead Trends After First Week of Early Voting, Down Ballot In Play

For nearly a decade, Democrats have held the majority in the Nevada legislature. Since 2022, Democrats hold 28 of 42 seats in the Assembly, a slim super majority, and are one seat shy of a supermajority in the Senate. A supermajority occurs when when one party holds two-thirds of the seats in a chamber, allowing the supermajority to pass tax and revenue increases without a vote from the other side of the aisle and override a gubernatorial veto.

In the Assembly, Republicans could break the supermajority by flipping one Democrat seat and successfully defending their existing 14 seats. All 42 Assembly seats and half of the 21 Senate seats are up for re-election this year. In his first term, Republican Governor Joe Lombardo issued a record-breaking 75 vetoes to “harmful and dangerous bill.” Of those vetoes, many of the bills are derived from or mimic California legislation, a state that is led by a one-party Democratic rule.

As reported by Jessica Hill of the Review-Journal:

Those vetoed bills include several housing-related policies that would apply rent control provisions, halt evictions up to 60 days for renters with pending rental assistance applications and require more transparency regarding fees in rental leases. The list also includes Assembly Bill 319, appropriating $43 million from the general fund to go to universal free breakfast and lunch in schools, and Senate Bill 419, which was intended to allow people access to Medicaid coverage regardless of their immigration status.

Lombardo anticipates Democrats would re-read those outstanding bills, and because his veto ability would be nullified, they would go through and become law.

Under Democratic rule, Lombardo anticipates an expansion to the size of government and increased regulations, as well as an expansion of union mentality and collective bargaining.

The governor was unable to push forward some of his biggest priorities in the 2023 session — such as implementing voter ID and expanding school choice. If a Democratic supermajority were to take place, he’d have an even harder time putting forward those goals.

A “harder time” is quite generous as the Governor would have a likely zero chance to provide Nevadans with a balanced approach to governing, or pass voter ID and school choice which is popular with a majority of Silver State voters. In the last legislative session, the Democratic majority refused to provide much of his legislation with an initial committee hearing. Nevada Democrats are seemingly not interested in bipartisanship, as was apparent when they gerrymandered the state into a democratic supermajority.

However, as Republicans are currently dominating early voting, the possibility of a democratic supermajority in both chambers is waning.

According to the most recent data provided by the Secretary of State, Republicans hold a 30,120 vote lead statewide with a 5.5 percent lead in mail and in-person voting.

The wildcard in this data are independent voters, as GOP consultant Jeremy Hughes confidently predicts, “The final result will be a Republican statewide lead of 10k—20k” based on a dramatic increase in GOP voter registrations. Democrats now hold a dwindling ~11,000 voter registration advantage to Republicans statewide and Hughes believes that number will fall below 10,000 by Election Day.  In 2020, Democrats had an 87,000 voter registration advantage. On Election Day in 2020, Republicans netted nearly 2,000 same-day voting registrations.

As Nonpartisan voters dominate registration totals, how they break may determine the final outcome of the presidential and down ballot races. Hughes further predicts that the Harris-Walz campaign will need to win nonpartisans by three percent to win their race, the exact number that Governor Lombardo and Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto won independents by in 2022.