Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Will Nevada, a tossup state, play a role in today’s presidential election?

Catherine Cortez Masto Votes at Cardenas Market

Steve Marcus

Nevada Senate Democratic candidate Catherine Cortez Masto wears a sticker after voting at a Cardenas supermarket in Las Vegas Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016.

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It was on Nov. 8, 1864, that Nevadans cast their ballots for the first time in a U.S. presidential election, exactly 152 years ago today.

Republican President Abraham Lincoln was fighting for re-election against Democrat George McClellan, a former Union general running on a peace platform, when the Silver State joined the Union barely a week earlier, on the date now known as Nevada Day, October 31.

It had appeared a tight race. A memo handwritten by Lincoln leading up to the election showed how he expected the electoral votes to break down: 114 for McClellan and 117 for Lincoln. Below the 117 total, he scrawled “Nevada” and added another three electoral votes, bringing Lincoln’s tally up to 120.

The election didn’t end up being close at all. A Union victory in the Battle of Atlanta propelled Lincoln to victory, securing 55 percent of the popular vote but a full 212 electoral votes to McClellan’s 21.

It was a landslide. Nevada didn’t matter at all.

But that first election speaks to the role that the state plays in presidential elections: If it’s close, Nevada matters; if it isn’t, we don’t.

That’s because of a system known as the Electoral College. Voters in each state don’t actually directly elect the president and vice president; they choose “electors” who then vote for the candidates. (Most states, including Nevada, have a “winner-take-all” system for awarding electors, meaning all of a state’s electoral votes will go to whichever candidate wins the popular vote in that state.)

There are currently 538 electors, who correspond to the 435 U.S. representatives and 100 U.S. senators, plus three electors from the District of Columbia.

Most states tend to vote predictably red and predictably blue based on their demographic makeup and voting behavior patterns within those demographics, which can change over time but don’t shift abruptly. But there are a handful of battleground states, including Nevada, that can swing either way on Election Day.

Nevada only has six electoral votes, which makes it one of the smaller Election Day prizes compared with a state like Florida that has 29 or Ohio with 18. If the big-ticket states all swing one direction on Election Day, Nevada’s six votes will be just another drop in the bucket. But should the candidates split the bigger swing states, those six votes could be enough to tip one candidate over the 270 vote threshold needed to win the election.

“When you start trying to win — ‘How do I get to 270’ — Nevada’s six matters,” said Michael Green, a history professor at UNLV. “We’re one of those states that topples. It doesn’t mean that either candidate is sitting there right now saying, ‘I can’t win without Nevada,’ but if I’ve got those six in my pocket, I feel better about the other places.”

Plus, Nevada has a certain symbolic quality: It’s voted for the presidential election winner in every election since 1912, with one exception (in 1976). It’s not that “As Nevada goes, so goes the nation,” but rather that the state tends to be a reliable barometer for who’s going to win the White House.

Why?

“If you look at the census since 1920, Nevada has been in a state of continuous growth. A lot of it has had to do with people moving here, and it has been a cross section,” Green said. “We have had a large number of immigrants and a large number of migrants from around the country as well as the sort of salt-of-the-earth Nevadans. You get quite a mixture.”

Nevadans aren’t consciously trying to pick the winner, but its demographic makeup means the state tends to tip the direction the nation tips in electing the next president, Green said.

The most recent demographic breakdown for the 2010 Census shows the state is almost 27 percent Hispanic, 8 percent black, and 7 percent Asian.

“We have diversity in our diversity, which you don’t see in a lot of places,” said UNLV political science professor David Damore, pointing to the state’s sizeable Hispanic and black populations, which you expect in the southwest and East Coast respectively, but not typically together.

Plus, nearly three-quarters of the state’s population lives in Las Vegas, meaning that Nevada is a fairly urban state despite its vast expanses of sagebrush-covered desert.

“This is a state that has, in 25 years, gone from rural and overwhelmingly white to what will in decades be a majority minority,” Damore said. “It’s the country on steroids, and it creates some of those fissures you see.”

The numbers similarly reflect the diversity of political thought across the nation. At the close of voter registration, there were nearly 580,000 Democrats, 490,000 Republicans, and 300,000 nonpartisans in Nevada — and it’s those nonpartisans who have the potential to tip the scales this cycle.

“Nonpartisans make up almost 28 percent of the total registered voters. Is it leaning left? I don’t know,” said Greg Ferraro, a Republican consultant in Nevada. “I wouldn’t buy into the premise. I would say Nevadans will continue to exercise their independence aside from traditional definitions of political philosophy.”

It’s not just the presidential race that hangs in the balance either.

Retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s seat is up for grabs and could fall either to Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto or Republican Joe Heck, as are two seats in the House of Representatives. Democrat Jacky Rosen and Republican Danny Tarkanian are battling to replace Heck in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, while Democrat Ruben Kihuen is hoping to oust incumbent Republican Cresent Hardy from his seat in the 4th District.

But it was the Republican coup of the reasonably blue 4th District seat in 2014 that proved just how swingy Nevada can be. If Democrats don’t get their voters — particularly low-propensity voters — out to the polls, Republicans win.

For Trump and Heck to win, Republicans need to win Washoe County, win by a landslide in the rural counties, and win a majority of nonpartisans, Ferraro said.

For Clinton and Cortez Masto, Democrats need to turn out black, Latino, Asian-American Pacific Islander and women voters, said Annette Magnus, executive director of the progressive group Battle Born Progress.

“I think those four demographics in Nevada have played a significant role over the past few cycles, and they’re going to play a huge role this year,” Magnus said.

Democrats secured a 56,000-person lead over Republicans during Nevada’s two-week early voting period, which ended on Friday. It’s up to Republicans now to make up that difference.

But as the sun set on the final day of campaigning, neither their candidates nor their most prominent surrogates were anywhere to be seen in the Silver State.

Both Trump and Clinton were making their last-minute pitches to voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina. Trump added Florida to that list while Mike Pence, his running mate, was making a final play for Minnesota and New Hampshire.

Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine and his wife were shoring up support in their home state of Virginia, while President Barack Obama stumped in Michigan and New Hampshire, and Vice President Joe Biden in Florida.

Does Nevada matter in 2016?

We’ll know tonight.

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