Posted on 11/03/2008 7:54:43 AM PST by LS
Obama Leads Among Nevada's Early Voters -- But Why Only By 6 When So Many Democrats Voted Early?
Nevada political consultant Steve Nathan has e-mailed with his latest polling results of those who have voted early in Nevada.
Their final results of calling everyone who voted early in the state put Obama ahead, 51.63 percent to 45.51 percent, with 2.87 percent going to other candidates.
Nathan predicts, “Rural areas of Nevada will be heavily favoring McCain, but with 46 percent of the statewide vote already in we doubt he will be able to gain enough support to overcome Obama’s lead in this race. Obama will win Nevada by a narrow margin.”
I’ve asked Nathan for the partisan breakdown and total samples size – last we heard, it was more than 12,000. I hestiate before contradicting the guy on the ground, but I think that McCain still has an excellent shot if this sample reflects the overall makeup of the voters that state figures indicate:
"The ballots from early and absentee voters in Clark County show 51-percent of more than 431-thousand votes were cast by Democrats and 32-percent were from Republicans. According to the secretary of state's office, more than 600-thousand votes had been cast statewide by Friday. Numbers from Washoe County show 38-percent of the votes came from Republicans, while 45-percent were cast by Democrats."
Clark County includes Las Vegas and Washoe County includes Reno; together they make up 88 percent of the state’s population. If every other early voter in the state was Republican, the Democrats would still have an early voter advantage of about 2 percent in the state overall. If the early voters in the other counties split roughly along the lines of party registration, then the Democratic advantage in the statewide early voting electorate is 48.5 percent to 35.4 percent.
If Nathan’s numbers are right, Obama leads by 6.12 percent in a voter pool that is about 13.1 percent more Democrats than Republicans. That would make me nervous if I were an Obama supporter, as it indicates more than a few pro-McCain Democrats casting ballots out there. If the Nevada Republicans show up and narrow that partisan breakdown to anything resembling the statewide party registration numbers – a 7 percent Democrat margin – McCain should be able to eke out a narrow victory.
I would amend Jim's excellent (and mostly correct) observation with this thought. Pardon me while I scream:
MCCAIN WILL RECEIVE A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF DEMOCRAT VOTES THAN OBAMA RECEIVES OF REPUBLICAN VOTES.
There. I feel better.
I saw this and am very encouraged by the numbers. We will show up tomorrow. SOS in NV expecting 1 million voters total. 431000 have already voted (46%). We can easily increase our turnout with another 570000 votes to come in and narrow that partisan advantage even more.
In plain English, the Dems shot their wad.
Thank you for the translation, very helpful, I don't speak Poll!
“In plain English, the Dems shot their wad.”
Exactly. The RAT base has voted. The GOP will storm the polls tomorrow. The RATS needed a bigger early turnout than this...
GOTV
(clears throat)
MCCAIN WILL RECEIVE A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF DEMOCRAT VOTES THAN OBAMA RECEIVES OF REPUBLICAN VOTES
There will be a shocking number of RATS who “Just Said No” to the Marxist.
Is coal an issue in NV, we hope?
NRO says McCain should eke out only a narrow win. That is not too comforting but if they are right it could make the difference between victory and defeat. Hard to believe 20 years ago NV went for Bush by a large margin, and of course it wasn’t even close when Reagan ran.
you don’t speak Pollish?
There you go, trying to encourage us yet again. Don't you know IT'S OVER? Michael Moore said so!
Personally, I’ll be a whole lot happier when I see a poll in which McCain is actually leading, as opposed to being behind by less than was previously expected.
MCCAIN WILL RECEIVE A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF DEMOCRAT VOTES THAN OBAMA RECEIVES OF REPUBLICAN VOTES.
I happen to also think McCain wins more of the Is, but even if they split, the above sentence = a comfortable McCain win in NV.
Nathan predicts, “Rural areas of Nevada will be heavily favoring McCain, but with 46 percent of the statewide vote already in we doubt he will be able to gain enough support to overcome Obama’s lead in this race. Obama will win Nevada by a narrow margin.”
How in the hell can that be construed as good news?
Come on Rural NV
Come out in droves
PUMA Power...let’s see what you got!
It's like accepting a driver's license picture as evidence instead of the person standing in front of you.
Not hammering you, but this is how freaking poll-obsessed we've become. We now treat polls as superior evidence to actual numbers of votes.
It's like the numbers I posted earlier on African-Americans. Did you know that in only ONE poll has Obama exceeded Algore's 93% level of support? And in MOST polls he doesn't even match Kerry's 87% number? And that in SOME he is at 80%????
Still trust those polls? Which part do you trust? the result? or the part that says 20% of blacks won't vote for Obama? And if he loses 15-20% of blacks, how does he win an election, when Algore lost an election with 93% of blacks?
If McCain only gets 1 vote from a DEMOCRAT, it will be more then what Obama will get from a REPUBLICIAN!*
* -- Real CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS, not RINOS!
IMO the McCain vote hasn't yet appeared but certainly will tomorrow on our traditional American voting day of November 4th.
Why the focus on NV ?
Why don’t you read it thoroughly so you can get the information through your thick skull. Dems are outvoting Repubs 52 to 30 in Vegas and 48 to 35 in Reno - if you expect that ratio to hold up after election day then Obama wins. If you presume that the ratio will narrow greatly which it will, then McCain wins based on how many dems are voting for him. So please try and read slow and you’ll understand what is going on. A 6 point lead with dems outnumbering repubs by 13 to 15 is not good news for obama.
The early Nevada results paralell Time Magazine’s poll 2.5 weeks ago to the tee. Time’s poll had Obama +6%, but the internals said Time oversampled Democrats by +11% (41-30, with 29% Independents). That smelled of trouble for Obama then. He only managed a lead of barely half of his own party’s oversampling margin. Tells me one of two things is true: either the Hillary supporters are telling Obama to pound sand, or all the Democrats are in line and the Independents are breaking hugely for McCain.
If Obama loses 10% or more of the Hillary voters, I don’t know how he can win. It’s unthinkable to me that any Republicans will vote for him. He needs EVERY single Democrat to vote for him, and I just can’t see that happening.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.