The funny thing about this cycle is that the most competitive states were among the easier to write about – combing through what mattered in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania felt methodical and routine, even if the stakes were huge. So, as we reach the very end of the road, it seems fitting that the biggest unknown, and one of the hardest to really unpack, is this year’s smallest swing state: Nevada.

Much to the chagrin of Jon Ralston and his “We Matter” mantra, Nevada is unlikely to affect the outcome of this election. Its six electoral votes are much more prone to be swept up on the way to the White House than they are to be the tipping point. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to learn here. Nevada is one of the most demographically diverse, economically interesting, and politically important states in the nation. And,you never know, stranger things have happened – it could, somehow, someway, end up deciding the election. 

We’ve spent this cycle trodding a familiar path: we explain what happened in 2020, some history, why Biden or Trump overperformed or underperformed, and then explain what we believe has shifted since. But Nevada demands a change of pace, so we want to turn the clock backwards just two years to the 2022 midterms. Because of difference in turnout and no uniting national figures at the top of the ticket, comparing midterm and presidential years is not good practice – nor do we claim it is – but we need to talk about it upfront here because Nevada boasted not just the closest Senate race that year, but was the only state in 2022 where a top-of-ticket incumbent governor or senator lost reelection. Yet, these were different races, and they went different ways: incumbent Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto narrowly won reelection, and incumbent Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak narrowly lost. Drawing a meaningful conclusion from the Silver State based on 2022 may seem incongruous with reality, but you can glean a lot from what happened two years ago, and there is an eerie parallel between the core figures in both 2022 and 2024.

The 2022 Parallels

Steve Sisolak came out of the proving ground that is Clark County (home to Las Vegas) Democratic politics, rising from a member of the Nevada Board of Regents to the Clark County Commission, to chair of said commission, to governor. A party man, he built his way up but didn’t inspire much excitement en route to capturing the governor’s mansion in 2018, a Democratic-leaning year (Sisolak is the state’s only Democratic governor in the 21st century). Unfortunately, much of his tenure was consumed by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, which was particularly acute in Nevada’s unique labor and tourism market. The state has a much higher share of employees in personal care and services-related occupations such as casino dealers, ticket takers, theater workers, concierges, and other positions that require direct interaction with tourists from all over the world who could be unwitting spreaders of the virus themselves. The closest comparison is Hawaii, 10% of whose GDP is generated by tourism, which is still less than Nevada’s, where tourism is responsible for 16% of the state’s GDP, the highest percentage in the country. The nature of Nevada’s economy makes it particularly vulnerable to pandemic-related shocks, as a significant portion of it rests on entertainment, travel, and face-to-face interaction. For these reasons, Nevada received the second-worst score in terms of how it has fared against the pandemic in Politico’s analysis. This all amounted to a situation where Nevada was imposing stricter pandemic guidelines late into the pandemic, and also suffering disproportionately from the pandemic as tourism fell off and prices surged nonetheless. 

Regardless of the policy’s soundness (it’s probably fair to say that no matter what COVID policies were implemented, Nevada would have suffered disproportionately compared to most states), Sisolak was, as the state’s executive, very much the face of a frustrating and difficult time in the state’s history. He was challenged in 2022 by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who ran on a tough on crime and pro-gun platform. In an almost perfect parallel to the situation President Joe Biden seemed to be on track to stare down this year, Sisolak attempted to pivot away from his controversial pandemic policies, and emphasized issues like abortion rights, high speed Internet access, affordable housing, gun control, and democracy. Sisolak lost, in part due to Lombardo’s overperformance in Clark County (he still lost Clark County, becoming the first person elected governor in the state without winning either Clark or Washoe (home to Reno) counties, but this was clearly a consequence of Sisolak’s pandemic policies: famously libertarian Nevada couldn’t take it anymore, despite Sisolak’s otherwise enviable record of policy wins.

Yet, on the same ballot, Catherine Cortez Masto held on. The incumbent Democrat, who took over Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid’s seat after his retirement in 2016, overcame a polling disadvantage, a strong (at least compared to many GOP candidates that cycle) opponent, and a Republican-leaning electoral environment. Her opponent, former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, may not have lacked controversy, but he coalesced support from Republicans early on and was able to walk a thin line ideologically, both appealing to the Trump wing of the party and hedging on the abortion issue that may have dragged many of his compatriots down. Contrary to the unsuccessful playbook of Republican candidates that cycle like Blake Masters in Arizona, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, and Herschel Walker in Georgia, Laxalt overperformed compared to recent Republican efforts in Nevada. So, why didn’t it work, and why did Cortez Masto stay afloat where Sisolak failed, despite both of them holding largely similar views?

For one, Cortez Masto was less tied to statewide policies and the economic fallout around the pandemic. Even though Cortez Masto was easier to connect to President Biden, who was unpopular in Nevada, and the abortion issue she stressed was at times overshadowed by the state’s economic woes, she and her congressional counterparts in Clark County avoided the COVID-19 backlash that Sisolak faced as the state’s executive, and his metaphorical sacrifice may have kept them all standing. Cortez Masto failed to excite many with her campaign, but she did stick to her message and stay on focus, while Laxalt veered. Cortez Masto’s competitiveness in Washoe County, which she did not carry in 2016, but did in 2022, also helped add to the stark urban-rural divide she needed to win reelection. 

Additionally, Cortez Masto’s relative moderation, credibility on environmental and women’s issues, and her ability to bring home positive returns for the state made her the more practical choice for voters who wanted a change in direction at the state level but felt better represented in the federal government by someone with a stable track record. It’s not that Sisolak didn’t support these same, broadly popular, issues – it’s that he was bogged down in other ones, and couldn’t keep them in the forefront, especially against a more credible opponent. 

This is a lot of set up for where we are in 2024, but the ideological and political parallels are astute. Biden, like Sisolak, couldn’t escape the economic woes and could not justifiably say that Nevadans were better off now than they were four years ago: Biden didn’t poll well in the state, the “bad vibes” economy and higher cost of living were (and are) particularly manifest in the Silver State, and – despite national policy wins focused on the state that created jobs, boosted energy production, and ostensibly supported the positions of a majority of Nevadans – Biden could not shake the frustration of the last four years. Meanwhile, Donald Trump appears a slightly more formidable candidate than he used to be (his favorability, though still underwater, is better than it once was): in a world where he just needs to run against the status quo, a la Lombardo, he seemed favored; but where there’s a direct contest between candidates, a la Laxalt, it’s a tougher sell. So, enter Kamala Harris who – like Cortez Masto (a longtime ally, they worked together as attorneys general in California and Nevada, respectively; and in the Senate) – could afford to run a campaign more divorced from the coronavirus, a touch and go economy, and more driven by issues like abortion and candidate quality.

Setting the Stage for 2024

Harris will have some ground to make up, potentially a lot of it. It feels as though Nevada has been something of a white whale for Republicans this century, their equivalent of Democrats trying to win North Carolina (successful at the local level, but consistently failing to break through at the presidential or Senate level every four years). But even as far back as 2020 it was clear the state was drifting rightward – though it went for Biden, it was only by about 2.4%, about 2.1% to the right of the nation. This was about 2.4% more right than its margin back in 2016, which was in turn 2.5% more to the right than it was in 2012 (which was also 2.4% to the right of where it was in 2008). Our model relies on trendline data from 2000 and on, so it pushes against this trend, given the state was to the right of the nation in both 2000 and 2004, but the pattern over the last three elections seems to suggest the state moving consistently about 2.4% to the right every four years. If we’re going to argue against our own initial trendline assumption, it’s worth considering: was 2008 a Democratic high water mark for the state, or is the state just being fickle?

Nevada is a small state, with only around 3.2 million people. The size of the state means that, given a lot of movement to and from the state, the politics could be a bit volatile. This makes us more prone to push against the 21st century trendline data, especially given that Nevada’s population has increased by 58% since 2000, the largest percentage of any state. If we treat 2008 as a high point for Democratic performance in the state, and cut off 2000 and 2004, we get an incredibly explanative regression equation like the paragraph above suggests: the state has moved about 2.44 points to the right every four years, and the R² value (the measure of how well the regression model predicts the outcome) is 0.99. Wary of making an exception for Nevada here and only considering the last four presidential elections, I want to both justify and hedge this by splitting the net effect in half (R+1.22) and talking about why this may be, because its unique demographics probably do justify using more modern data.

First, let’s talk about what Nevada looks like. Like many states that have gone to the Democrat in recent elections, Nevada is a very urban state. With apologies upfront for the overt Las Vegas-centrism at hand in this piece (you cannot say you weren’t warned), Sin City will receive a lot of focus not because of disdain for the Biggest Little City upstate, but for both demonstrative and pragmatic purposes. About three-quarters of Nevada’s population is concentrated in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which is surrounded by hundreds of miles of comparatively little population, and stands out very clearly on both population density and light pollution maps. And yet, the metro is relatively moderate: in 2016, it gave about 43% of its vote to Trump. Though downtown and many suburbs remain or have become more Democratic, by and large they remain pretty moderate. Recent electoral wins by Democrats tend to reflect incumbency, gerrymandering, more extreme Republican candidates, or a mix of all three, rather than a clear electoral advantage. While suburbs have shifted leftward nationally, there are some key differences when it comes to the Silver State.

If you are a passionate reader of this site you may recall that just two years ago I wrote that Nevada matters to the 21st century Democratic Party because its electorate is both ahead of and behind the future Democratic electorate. What does this mean? Well, what I was trying to get at is that Nevada looks like the Democratic coalition of 2008-2020, but unlike the apparent coalition of 2024. Only 28% of the state has a bachelor’s degree (just six states have a smaller share), and it is the only state with a share less than 30% that went to Biden four years ago. Nevadans aren’t particularly wealthy either, at least in contrast to solidly blue – but politically moderate – states like Colorado or Virginia. Where Nevada stands out is its higher proportion of union workers (a traditionally Democratic voting group) and its diversity; around a fifth of the state is Mexican-American (the fifth highest proportion among all states), it is one of a select few majority-minority states, and the Las Vegas metro in particular is remarkably well integrated, the least segregated major metropolitan area in the country as of the last comprehensive dataset (around 2018). It’s pretty clear why this boosted Democrats in 2008 and 2012, when Latinos and union households were key parts of the coalition, but data now seems to suggest that both are moving rightward. If you’re a Democrat, this seems to put Nevada on a cataclysmic course.

Let’s move on to some other potentially relevant considerations from the last few years, divorced from those trends. Looking specifically at 2020-2024, Nevada’s growth rate has been above the average, and it’s clear there’s been significant migration to the state over the last few years. Around this same time, the number of registered Democrats dropped dramatically, whereas the number of registered Republicans has nudged upward; the real story though is that the number of registered independents jumped upward. It’s notable that though Nevada may be on track to implement open primaries, it is not currently, nor has it been over the last four years – so there is zero benefit and actually an absolute loss of electoral power in switching to an independent registration. Whether it’s new voters, new Nevadans, or outright frustration and apathy regarding the system, it’s hard to read this as anything other than bad news for Democrats. There’s not a lot of conclusive evidence that disgruntled Republicans leaving deep blue, high tax California for neighboring Nevada are necessarily causing this shift, though this ideological sorting does seem partially responsible. We do know that about 43% of all new Nevadans over the last few years came from California. And there’s certainly a sizable chance that a meaningful amount of new Nevadans came from a state – like California – which doesn’t have a closed primary, and may just not be registered with either party, even if they’re reliably Democratic or Republican voters.

Casting the Die

The message flashing in your head right now should be that Nevada has probably lunged rightward. Polls don’t even necessarily disagree with this. Though Nevada is a notoriously difficult state to poll (almost certainly the most difficult of the key states this cycle), polls with Biden were a canary in the coalmine – he was doing really poorly in the state, especially compared to 2020. Polls are better for Harris, but they’re still notably worse than her where the ticket polled just four years ago. 

As mentioned earlier, economic concerns, cost of living increases, high gas prices – all things which certainly harm the incumbent party – are pretty clearly hammering Nevadans harder than most other Americans. Housing prices in particular have been a major issue in the state and this falls even more disproportionately on Latinos, who are more likely to rent their homes. So, when Biden unveiled his plan to tamp down and cap rental costs nationally, the host location wasn’t exactly shocking. And it’s also not surprising that Harris has continued to key into the cost of housing as a serious election issue, given its pernicious impact nationally and in key swing states, like Nevada. And, though Nevada is not a border state, immigration resonates as an issue there due to high costs of living, increased labor market competition, and the large Latino population. It’s no secret that voters trust Trump more than Harris on the issue. 

At this point, Trump – who it bears noting, does have some ties to the state – seems to be the odds-on favorite (if not heavy favorite) to win Nevada. But there are some bright spots that keep it in play for Democrats. Harris is polling better than Biden, especially among Latino voters, and she has more upside broadly – able to shrug off some of the economic baggage of the pandemic and try to rebuild relationships with Nevadans. In her favor, after rebounding from the death of its namesake, the so-called “Reid Machine” is back, providing resources and know-how for Democratic organizing efforts in the state – something that could make a difference on the margin, and is miles ahead of Republican organizing there. Endorsements from key labor groups, most notably the Culinary Union, and the weight of their organizing will also provide a leg up to Harris. Though union workers nationally may have drifted rightward, the Nevada effort is much more concentrated and has much closer ties to the national and state party. Notably, however, Trump attempted to make some inroads with the service workers in Nevada with his “no taxes on tips” policy, which was ultimately endorsed by both Harris and the Culinary Union. 

Plus, it’s not like Democrats aren’t wary of the manifest problems. Aware of its environmental and infrastructure challenges, they’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the state and funneling federal money to its communities. Whether this can meaningfully translate into votes is to be determined, but there’s at least something to run on and point to here.

Then there’s the coup de grâce of the Democratic strategy this cycle, the abortion ballot measure. By statute, abortion is legal in Nevada, but the ballot measure before voters this November seeks to amend the state constitution to enshrine the right until fetal viability (it will also need to be approved by voters again in 2026, consistent with the process for amending the Nevada constitution). There is good reason to think that abortion ballot measures like this may not necessarily juice Democratic turnout, but Nevada may be different. Its proclivity for libertarianism and bodily autonomy seems to be genuine, as it remains one of the most pro-choice states in the country (more Nevadans seem to say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases than Californians, New Yorkers, or Coloradans; only 2% – lower than any other state – believe it should be illegal in all cases), measurably more pro-choice than the other swing states. By focusing attention on the issue, buoyed by the ballot measure, more so than in any other swing state, Harris really could claw back some Democratic support.

None of this makes it easy, and it’s become increasingly clear that Nevada no longer clearly favors Democrats, even in a neutral year, but it does show that effort and issues still matter: were it not for organizing efforts, a clear issue focus, and consistent commitment to the state, Democrats would face far worse odds.

And that should just about put a bow on not just Nevada but also our presidential model, for which Nevada marks the final addition. Nevada may not be the biggest, the most important, or highest profile swing state, but it is certainly the most interesting. The Battle Born State provides some of the largest unknowns of the cycle and has the most potential to break a legendary Democratic streak. 

As we have with every key race this cycle, we’ve attempted to give you expansive insight based on data, trendlines, the stories and characters that matter, and our own lived experiences. And nowhere does that approach matter more than in Nevada. Thank you for following along and, as we march towards Election Day, we’ll see you over on the model!