Republicans topple Dem voter registration advantage in crucial swing state as early vote wraps up
New numbers released in a key swing state show that Republicans have virtually erased the Democrat voter-registration lead, on top of historic early-voting numbers for Republicans, which one expert tells Fox News Digital is part of an effective strategy on the ground targeting a key demographic.
Figures released by the Nevada Secretary of State on Friday showed that Democrats hold a 9,200-vote lead in registrations over Republicans after October data was added. Four years ago, Democrats held an advantage of roughly 86,000 votes heading into Election Day.
On top of significantly narrowing the registration gap, Republicans have had a historically high early-vote turnout and lead Democrats by about 5% in the early vote, which ended in person on Friday, while trailing in mail-in votes.
Early voting concluded in Nevada with 393,811 votes cast for Republicans, 344,539 for Democrats, and 287,762 for other affiliations, according to the Secretary of State website.
The roughly 49,000 vote advantage that Republicans had over Democrats at the end of the week is a stark contrast from 2020, when Democrats ended early voting with a 43,000-vote advantage.
Biden won Nevada by roughly 34,000 votes in 2020.
The Democratic turnout advantage in the state in years past has been driven by what is known as the "Reid Machine" that late Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015, established to help pool resources to maximize support for candidates up and down the ballot.
His approach tapped into networks that extended well beyond the traditional party structure. He leaned especially on the heavily immigrant Culinary Union, which represents about 60,000 casino workers and leads efforts to register voters, make phone calls and knock on doors.
"That paradigm has changed," Nevada’s GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo said in Carson City on Friday. "That dynamic has changed. It has changed, and we are in the game. We are in the game, and it helps that you had a crappy president for the last four years."
A large part of that paradigm shift, Sentinel Action Fund President Jessica Anderson told Fox News Digital, has to do with the work that organizations like hers have done in battleground states along with the Republican Party.
"You had candidates up and down the ballots, including President Trump and Senate candidates in all of the target states, embracing early voting," Anderson said. "The candidate has to be brought in themselves. So that's really important. And then the other three things I think that made a difference was the messaging around absentee early votes. The first is that a lot of the focus was on convenience. It's, you know, it's more convenient. You're busy. You can skip the line of Election Day, vote early. You know, you're busy with your kids, your child care, your job. You know, whatever those things are that can potentially interrupt your plans on Election Day, just take the convenience of voting early or dropping your ballot in the mail and get a difference. I think that message really worked."
"The second message that we saw really encapsulated and worked in particular in the mail was the military messaging. That it works for our guys overseas, it's safe, it's convenient, it's secure. Then the third, which was, I think, really unique to President Trump and his leadership here as we talked about voting early to overcome the margin of fraud and that did exceptionally well in our focus groups. And then when we presented some of that information to President Trump and to others in the party over time, that became kind of the clarion call of the RNC, you know, ‘Vote early.’ So it's too big to rig."
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Anderson said that Sentinel Action Fund has also embraced ballot harvesting and that one of the keys to Republican success has been the strategic targeting of low-propensity voters who have not voted in years past.
Some experts have wondered whether strong GOP early-vote turnout in Nevada, and nationwide, would "cannibalize" the historically strong Election Day turnout that Republicans usually enjoy in a situation where Election Day voters are simply just voting early, and Republicans will have a weaker turnout on Election Day.
Anderson told Fox News Digital that Sentinel Action Fund’s data and modeling in Senate races in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada show that the GOP vote is not being cannibalized.
"I know it's not happening, because we can see it in the data," Anderson said, pointing to Sentinel Action Fund modeling in the Senate race between GOP Senate candidate Sam Brown and incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen.
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"Democrats and Republicans appear to be getting ballots from the same percentage of high- and low-propensity voters, but Democrat Jacky Rosen’s votes are coming disproportionately through the mail," Anderson wrote on Substack on Friday.
"Meanwhile, Sam Brown is winning in-person ballots at a ratio of 1.35 to 1. If the Reid machine is unable to match Republicans during early voting, it’s hard to see it mobilizing for an Election Day surge. There is good reason to believe that Sam Brown can continue to perform well through Election Day."
Some political pundits and politicians outside the Republican Party have also sounded the alarm for Democrats in Nevada in terms of the GOP early-vote surge.
"Republicans are kicking our ass at early voting," Nevada Democratic Congresswoman Dina Titus said during a Harris rally in North Las Vegas. "We cannot let that happen."
Respected Nevada journalist Jon Ralston, CEO and Editor of the Nevada Independent, acknowledged on X on Friday that "you'd rather be GOP than Dems as in-person early voting ends today" but pointed out that three remaining variables are "key," including Clark County mail figures, the independent vote and Election Day turnout.
On Saturday, Ralston posted on X, "NV voter update: GOP extends lead to 49 K statewide. That's 4.8 percent. Rural landslide continues. It's now Clark mail or bust for Dems, steep climb."
Nevada has voted for every Democrat who has run for president since 1992, except the two elections with President George W. Bush on the ballot. However, the average margin across those eight elections is just 4.1 points.
Nevada's six electoral votes are expected to play a critical role in determining which candidate wins the presidential election, and the Real Clear Politics average of polls shows Trump with a slim 1.5-point lead.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.