Here’s a good example of the kind of down-ticket surprise we might see on Election Night: Representative Steven Horsford is a first-term Democrat representing Nevada’s fourth district, a new district created when the state gained a seat after the census.
Located in the central portion of the state, [the fourth district] includes most of northern Clark County, part of Lyon County, and all of Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral, Nye and White Pine counties. Although the district appears rural, more than four-fifths of the district’s population lives in Clark County, and it is a majority-minority district.
It scored a D+4 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. It is, by just about every definition, a tough district for a Republican to win. State assemblyman Crescent Hardy is the GOP nominee in this congressional race.
Jon Ralston, the journalist who covers Nevada politics more thoroughly than anybody else, examines the early voting numbers and concludes, “the numbers are devastating for Rep. Steven Horsford.”
According to numbers from the Nevada secretary of state through October 27, 104,809 votes have been cast in Clark County — that’s both in-person early voting and absentee ballots returned. 44,274 are from registered Republicans; 42,836 are from registered Democrats. Another 17,699 are from unaffiliated or other-party voters.
So that’s a 1,400-or-so-vote lead for the GOP in the part of the district that is the Democratic stronghold.
Here’s how the early vote breaks down from the other counties that are partially or entirely in this congressional district:
Lyon: 840 Democrats, 2,201 Republicans, 594 other — a 1,361-vote margin for the GOP.
Esmeralda: 16 Democrats, 52 Republicans, 17 other — a 36-vote margin for the GOP.
Lincoln: 77 Democrats, 161 Republicans, 34 other — an 84-vote margin for the GOP.
Nye: 1,145 Democrats, 2,192 Republicans, 792 other — a 1,047-vote margin for the GOP.
White Pine: 283 Democrats, 409 Republicans, 126 other — a 126-vote margin for the GOP.
The congressional-district lines don’t align perfectly with the county lines, so it wouldn’t be accurate to say that Hardy leads in this election by 4,092 votes. We also don’t know how the independent vote is splitting. But if 4,000 more registered Republicans vote than registered Democrats in the district’s counties, it’s a very good sign for the GOP candidate.