Indy Elections: Groups try to improve trust in elections
Indy Elections is The Nevada Independent’s newsletter devoted to comprehensive and accessible coverage of the 2024 elections, from the race for the White House to the bid to take control of the Legislature.
In today’s edition: Republicans lead efforts to restore faith in Nevada’s election system, are Rosen/Trump voters A Thing (?) and Democrats ramp up abortion messaging on the anniversary of Roe’s defeat.
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By the Numbers:
- $4,303.27 – the amount of money it cost Nevada in 1864 to telegraph the Nevada Constitution to Washington D.C. (that’s about $84,363 in 2023)
- 65 percent of voters (roughly) who cast ballots by mail in the primary, up from 57 percent two years ago
- 133 days until the general election
Nevada leaders announce efforts to restore faith in election system, uphold democracy
By Tabitha Mueller
Two former Nevada governors and other top elected leaders have joined separate efforts to restore confidence in Nevada’s election system.
Former Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, and former Speaker Richard Perkins (D-Henderson) will serve on the bipartisan board of the Democracy Defense Project, a new nonprofit launched Tuesday that focuses on eight battleground states, including Nevada.
Meanwhile, former GOP Gov. Robert List and state Sen. Heidi Gansert (R-Reno) are co-leading RightCount Nevada, another new nonprofit engaged in battleground states that seeks to restore confidence in elections.
The Nevada Independent spoke with representatives from the two groups about their goals and plans to restore voter trust.
You can read the full story here.
What we’re reading and writing
NV Supreme Court rejects payday loan ballot initiative; narrower version awaits ruling by Eric Neugeboren
Lesson: Always put forward two ballot initiatives in case one doesn’t succeed.
Judge dismisses Nevada fake electors case over lack of jurisdiction by Eric Neugeboren
I guess where you file a lawsuit matters a LOT.
Nevada Democrats to sue to kick RFK Jr. off presidential ballot over party affiliations by Gabby Birenbaum
Will Nevada provide the recipe for other states to kick Kennedy off, too?
Judge tosses initial GOP lawsuit alleging Nevada voter rolls insufficiently maintained by Eric Neugeboren
Disproving the adage: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Green Party qualifies for 2024 ballot in Nevada; Dem lawsuit pending by Eric Neugeboren
It’s not easy being green.
Indy Poll Watch
- Emerson College/The Hill (June 13-18)
- 1,000 registered voters
- Margin of error: 3 percent
The latest Emerson College poll of both the presidential and Senate races in Nevada reaffirms the trend we’ve seen in several polls now — former President Donald Trump and Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) are leading.
The poll finds the presidential race to be within the margin of error. Trump is winning by 3 points in the full ballot test, but excluding third-party candidates leaves Biden with a 1 percentage point lead — Biden’s first time leading a Nevada poll this year.
Rosen, meanwhile, is up 12 percentage points on Republican Sam Brown, with 13 percent of the electorate still undecided. The poll (which included other swing states) found similar trends in both Trump and Democratic Senate candidates leading in each respective state, though Rosen’s lead is the largest among the five presidential swing states where Democrats are defending Senate seats.
If you are an elusive but seemingly proportionally significant Trump-Rosen voter, please reach out — we’d love to speak to you!
— Gabby Birenbaum
Indy Ad Watch
AD-NALYSIS OF THE WEEK: The post-primary Senate race begins
Bring on the outside spending!
Now that Nevada’s U.S. Senate matchup has been finalized, outside groups are pouring money into the race to begin defining Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Republican Sam Brown in a state where significant portions of the electorate have no impression of either candidate.
On the Democratic side, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and leadership-affiliated PAC Duty and Honor hopped in immediately with ads attacking Brown as an extremist and affirming Rosen’s commitment to an orderly border, respectively.
Meanwhile, conservative group One Nation and a PAC connected to fuel manufacturers started swinging at Rosen by connecting her to the politically unpopular president of her party.
If you’re turning on the TV over the next four and a half months — Godspeed.
— Gabby Birenbaum
TOP FOUR ADS WITH THE HIGHEST SPENDING (6/18-6/24)
Data from political ad-tracking organization AdImpact
- U.S. Senate race: One Nation (anti-Jacky Rosen) - Wasteful Spending
- Began airing: 6/18
- Total spend: $303,622
- Ad impressions (number of times an advertisement was seen, regardless of whether the user took any action): 5.5 million
- Presidential race: Future Forward USA Action/Climate Power (pro-Joe Biden) - Lowering Costs
- Began airing: 6/7
- Total spend: $260,140
- Ad impressions: 3.5 million
- U.S. Senate race: Jacky Rosen - Our Rights
- Began airing: 6/12
- Total spend: $242,457
- Ad impressions: 8.5 million
- Presidential race: Joe Biden - Character Matters
- Began airing: 6/17
- Total spend: $232,938
- Ad impressions: 10.9 million
ONE OTHER TIDBIT
- As campaigns have highlighted the high cost of prescription drugs, discussed out-of-reach medical costs and promised to address it, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores ran an ad beginning mid-June in cities across the country (including in Nevada) calling for reforms to Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs), who negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers on behalf of health insurance plans. It came around the same time that a group of 32 bipartisan state attorney generals, including Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, requested that the U.S. Supreme Court weigh in on a challenge of a 2019 Oklahoma law that sought to regulate PBM networks.
SPENDING SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK
— Tabitha Mueller
The Lightning Round
🧑⚖️ New brief filed in the challenge of ballot counting after Election Day — ACLU Nevada, Campaign Legal Center and the Protect Democracy Project filed an amicus brief last week in a GOP-led lawsuit challenging a Nevada law allowing elections officials to accept mail ballots for up to four business days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked before polls close.
🗳️ 38 of 39 Planned Parenthood Nevada endorsees advance to the general election — The group said it’s a testament to Nevada voters’ motivation to support abortion access. Former Assemblyman Richard Carrillo (D-Las Vegas), who ran to be a higher education regent, was the only endorsee to lose the primary.
😡 State Republicans upset over NV Dems’ tweet — A now-deleted social media post from the Nevada Democratic Party used a speech bubble meme format to depict Gov. Joe Lombardo Lombardo saying, “the bribes I took did not influence me to become evil. I was evil from the beginning and the bribes were merely a bonus.” The Nevada Republican Party condemned the post, demanding an apology. The Nevada Democratic Party said in a post that it removed the meme because of a copyright issue and the state Republican Party “doesn’t understand internet culture.’
📣Dems ramp up abortion messaging on Dobbs anniversary — On Monday, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Biden campaign held an event about the stakes of this year’s election, which featured appearances by actress Connie Britton and a Texas OB-GYN who fled the state to receive reproductive care. The event marked the launch of the “Reproductive Freedom Defenders” group in Nevada, which involves training people on activating voters who support abortion access.
🚪GOP ground game gets a boost — Veteran political operative Chris Carr is leading a new super PAC effort to reach Republican-leaning independent voters, a welcome development for Republicans worried about the party’s lack of a ground game in Nevada. First reported in The Dispatch, the Republican Leadership Fund will deploy more than 100 staffers to get out the vote starting in September, micro-targeting nonpartisans whom the group believes can be persuaded to vote Republican.
— Tabitha Mueller and Eric Neugeboren
Looking Ahead
📺 Thursday, June 27 — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will face off in their first debate of the 2024 election cycle on Thursday. The 90-minute debate is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. PST on CNN.
✈️ Friday, June 28 — Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Las Vegas on Friday. This will be her sixth visit to the Silver State.
— Tabitha Mueller
And to ease you into the week, a few “posts” to “X” that caught our eye:
- Welcome to scheduling in the world of politics.
- Former Indy reporter Sean Golonka reveals a universal truth.
- If I had to take the bar, I’d eat my feelings, too.
- The kids are alright.
We’ll see you next week.
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Editor’s note: This story appears in Indy Elections, The Nevada Independent’s newsletter dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the 2024 elections. Sign up for the newsletter here.