John Locher / AP
A sign directs people where to vote at a polling place during early voting in Las Vegas, Oct. 30, 2020.
Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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Almost 1,150 Nevadans have combined to leave the Republican and Democratic parties in the last month to join the ranks of nonpartisan voters, according to the Nevada Secretary of State.
Between Jan. 1 to Feb. 1, 1,293 Democrats changed parties — 714 to nonpartisan and 354 to Republican. Comparatively, 798 Republicans changed their parties, with 433 going to nonpartisan and 134 going to Democratic Party, according to the Secretary of State.
The number of people who have switched parties reflect an impatient electorate, said David Damore, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at UNLV.
“My guess is what you’re getting here is probably voters who were mobilized in the last election and were tied to favoring the Democrats in the short term,” Damore said. “And now you’ve had an election. You’ve had a year of Biden. You had a year of the Legislature, and they’re probably not liking what they’re seeing.”
Nevada’s gubernatorial, Senate and House races in November will depend on those nonpartisan voters, especially since Democrats are on thin ice with maintaining their majority.
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is up for reelection in a hotly contested race that political analysts once labeled “Lean Democrat” before changing it to a “toss-up.” When Cortez Masto won in 2016 against Republican Joe Heck, she won by a narrow 2.4 points.
Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak won in 2018 by 4.78 points, defeating former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who is currently trying to oust Cortez Masto. The latest polling puts Sisolak ahead of Republican candidates by a narrow 1.4% margin.
As of January 2022, there are 73,785 more registered Democrats than there are Republicans in Nevada, according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office. Of the 1,845,863 registered voters, 624,145 are Democrats, 550,360 are Republicans and 516,120 are Independents.
Nevada’s registration numbers also reflect an unstable electorate, which increased by 25% in 2020 through new voting rules and new residents, Damore said. Dynamics like President Joe Biden’s approval ratings and a lack of cohesive messaging play into those registration changes as well, he said.
“It’s just trying to read the tea leaves. I don’t think if you’re Democrat it’s good news for you,” Damore said. “We usually say it’s good to be an incumbent, except when it’s not.”
Gubernatorial candidate and North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee is one of those Democrats who have switched to the Republican Party last year. In an interview he said the Nevada Democratic Party became more socialist and his values no longer aligned with the party.
“I think that there’s a lot of people right now who are feeling threatened, and if they say anything at all they’re being asked to regret what they said,” Lee said. “ I don’t think people want to do that, so the only way they can make their voice heard … is to change parties.”
