Early Voting Figures in Traditionally Democratic State Shock Reporter: ‘Unprecedented’

According to the Nevada Independent, there are now more Republican Nevadans who have voted early or by mail than Democratic Nevadans. This rarely happens because Democrats are so excited to vote on any day except Election Day.

Veteran journalist Jon Ralston noted that while Clark County reported an increase in Democratic ballots submitted overnight, it wasn’t sufficient to narrow the gap in early voting. Republicans currently lead by 40,000 ballots, holding a 5.3% advantage over Democrats. Overall, the GOP has a 5.7% lead in the state, with 40,000 more votes cast than their Democratic counterparts.

“This has never happened before, not even close, during the Reid Machine Era,” Ralston remarked, referencing the late Harry Reid, a powerful Senate leader.

In Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, Republicans are particularly optimistic about securing a victory for Trump in a state that hasn’t backed a Republican candidate since 2004. Here, Republican turnout is nearly 9% higher, and the “typically reliable Democratic firewall in Clark has nearly vanished,” Ralston observes. Unlike in 2020 or 2022, the trends he’s witnessing are unprecedented, highlighting the fervor among Republicans for Trump’s return to the White House. “This is a unicorn year. We’ve never seen anything like it,” he added.

Nevadans, largely temporary workers in the service industry and facing the country’s worst housing market, seem to be losing patience with giving Democrats the benefit of the doubt during presidential campaigns. According to Politico, Trump has recently established a 5-point lead over Harris.

This development is surprising in a state that Trump lost by nearly 2.5% four years ago and was considered unlikely to be competitive this time. Instead, he has opened or expanded leads in several key states, including Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.

These swing states will play a crucial role in determining the election’s outcome.

This news follows the Nevada Supreme Court’s dismissal of a Republican challenge, ruling that mail-in ballots received up to three days after Election Day may still be counted. The Hill reported that a majority of the court affirmed that state law mandates counting mail-in ballots even when the postmark is unclear or missing. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision that ballots arriving three days after November 5 could still be included in the final tally.

The ruling was a setback for Republicans, who contended that the law should only apply to ballots with illegible postmarks.

“In cases where a voter properly and timely casts their vote by mailing their ballot before or on Election Day, it would contradict public policy to disregard that vote simply due to a post office error that results in no postmark,” the majority opinion from Nevada stated, as reported by The Hill.

The court continued, “There is no principled difference between mail ballots with ‘illegible’ or ‘smudged’ postmarks and those without a postmark at all — in both cases, the date the mail ballot was received by the post office cannot be determined.”

Additionally, the high court upheld the district court’s ruling that the GOP did not have standing, noting that the plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove that mail ballots were susceptible to voter fraud or that current security measures were inadequate to mitigate those concerns.

The high court also dismissed claims that mail ballots exhibit a partisan bias favoring Democrats.

In a statement to The Hill, Republican National Committee spokesperson Claire Zunk argued that the ruling could undermine election integrity. “Requiring ballots to be postmarked on or before Election Day is a critical safeguard that ensures ballots mailed after Election Day are not counted,” she said. “This requirement is also stipulated by Nevada law. By allowing state officials to disregard the law’s postmark requirement, the state’s highest court has compromised the integrity of Nevada’s elections.”

Meanwhile, pollster Nate Silver’s latest forecast suggests that Trump could win all the key swing states in the 2024 election. His analysis indicates that Trump has a 24.4% chance of securing victory in all seven battleground states this November. In contrast, Harris has a 15.6% chance of winning all the crucial swing states.