Nevada Early Voting Analysis, Week One

Here, we will look at 2008 and 2012 registration and early voter reports. We will then do worst case and best case scenarios to see just where the presidential race is in The Silver State.

From the Nevada SOS active registration list:

Year Democrat Republican NP/other Total
2008 531,317 430,594 245,850 1,207,761
2012 526,986 436,799 293,836 1,257,621
-------- -------- -------- ---------
Difference -4,331 +6,205 +47,986 +49,860

In 2008, 234,934 people or 19.45% of registered voters voted early during the first week.

In 2012, 305,040 people or 24.26% of registered voters voted early during the first week.

The difference is +70,106 voters or 4.8% of registered voters.

(NOTE: Several small counties have not reported Thursday or Friday Numbers yet, so I extrapolated from available data and added 8,600 votes to reported totals. I believe this to be a very good estimate. In any event, it is small compared to the rest of the state)

Now , the 2012 early vote can be broken down by party and looks like this:

Democrat Republican NP/other Total
140,153 111,185 53,702 305,040

Additionally, we have some absentee mail in ballot information from the SOS office:

Democrat Republican NP/other Total
20,516 20,836 7,619 48,971

So, the total known vote after one week (including 8600 vote estimate) is:

Democrat Republican NP/other Total
160,669 132,021 61,321 354,011

This means over 28% of active registered voters have voted already

So, what is the state of the race? In 2008 Obama beat McCain by 533,736 to 412,827, a difference of 120,909 votes. Percentage wise it was 55.15% to 42.65% with the rest going to third party or "None of these candidates".

Additionally, from 2008 exit polls [link:http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#NVP00p1| we know that votes by party ID looked like this:

Obama McCain No answer/other
Dem 93% 6% 1%
Rep 11% 88% 1%
NP 54% 41% 5%

This is probably an absolute best case for 2012. If we use these percentages with week one totals we come up with this:

Obama Romney
197,058 156,953

This gives Obama a 40,105 vote lead.

But, lets do a worst case scenario. Lets assume 85% Democrats, 8% Rebublicans, and 40% of everybody else votes Obama

This gives us:

Obama Romney
171,659 182,352

This would give Romney a 10,693 vote lead.

Conclusion: More people are registered to vote and are voting earlier than in 2008. Also, more Democrats than Republicans are voting early. This, it seems to me, argues against any enthusiasm gap In Nevada. We are probably, but not certainly winning. If I had to bet, I would say we are about a 4 to 1 or 80% favorite to win.