JUST IN: Historically Blue State’s Early Vote Stuns Veteran Journalist: ‘This Has Never Happened’

A seismic wave of Republican early voters may be the difference maker in a Sun Belt state that hasn’t gone red since 2004.

The Nevada Independent reported that conservative Nevadans now exceed the number of Democratic early and mail-in voters, a phenomenon that essentially never happens given Democrats’ overwhelming enthusiasm for voting on any day except Election Day. According to veteran journalist Jon Ralston, an overnight uptick in Democratic ballots from populous Clark County wasn’t enough to dent the GOP’s advantage in early voting where Republicans there have submitted 38,000 more ballots than Democrats, a lead of 5.3%. Statewide, GOP voters have turned in 40,000 more ballots than Democrats, putting their lead at 5.7%. “This has never happened, not even close, in The Reid Machine Era,” Ralston wrote about the formidable departed Senate leader Harry Reid.

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Clark County, which is anchored by Las Vegas, is ground zero for Republicans’ enthusiasm about delivering Trump a win in a state that last voted for the Republican nominee in 2004. There, Republicans are almost 9% ahead in turnout while the “usually reliable Clark Dem firewall has all but evaporated,” Ralston writes. Unlike 2020 or 2022, the phenomenon he’s seeing has no precedent, underscoring how badly Republicans want Trump to return to the White House. “This is a unicorn year. We have never seen this,” he adds.

Nevadans, who encompass a transient workforce of service industry voters living in an epicenter of the nation’s housing crisis, are apparently fed up with giving Democrats the benefit of the doubt each presidential election. Earlier this month, Politico reported that Trump had opened a 5-point lead over Harris, a stunning development in a state that Trump lost by nearly 2.5% four years ago and was expected to remain just out of play this cycle. Instead, the former president has opened or expanded leads there as well as in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, all of which are critical swing states that will determine the winner.

In a bid to stanch the bleeding, Harris in August took up Trump’s promise to eliminate taxes on tipped wages, a policy that’s proven extremely popular in Las Vegas’s service industry. But despite leading for most of her short campaign, the Democrat has finally fallen below a winning average, according to FiveThirtyEight: she is now 0.2% below Trump in an amalgam of the latest polls, one of which showed Trump up by 3 points.

Republicans have grown increasingly bullish about their chances of victory, especially in the Senate. Wins in West Virginia and Montana, now all but certain, would be enough to flip the upper chamber to GOP control. Meanwhile, tightening races in Ohio and Pennsylvania have saddled incumbent Democrats Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bob Casey (D-PA) with voters’ unhappiness about high prices, threatening to give Republicans an even greater number of seats. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday said he believes President Trump would support his bid to remain as Speaker, an outcome that will only occur if the GOP keeps its slim majority.

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