Indy Elections: Will young voters turn out?
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: People younger than 25 make up about 11 percent of Nevada’s active registered voters. We explore how campaigns are reaching this critical voting bloc that can (and has) swung elections. Plus: a new Harris ad focused on housing, and an outlier poll showing former President Donald Trump ahead in Nevada.
A few reminders: Ballots are arriving. To help you fill yours out, The Nevada Independent has been laying out the stances of candidates in congressional races and key legislative races, explaining the state’s seven ballot questions and profiling candidates in the Las Vegas mayoral election.
You can find our election guide here.
Since our last edition, we’ve published stories highlighting the races for:
- Congressional District 1
- Congressional District 2
- Senate District 11
- Washoe County School Board District G
If you are not yet registered to vote, click here to do so — the deadline to register online and receive a mail ballot is Oct. 22. Nevadans can also register to vote online or in person before casting a ballot through the close of polls on Election Day.
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By the Numbers:
- 4 days until early voting begins
- 21 days until Election Day
- 111 days until the 83rd legislative session
Campaigns hope to turn out Nevada’s youth
By Gabby Birenbaum
Campaigns of both parties have reason to believe that young voters will make up a critical part of their coalitions come November.
The Harvard Institute of Politics’ national youth poll, released in September, found that Vice President Kamala Harris has a 31-point lead with voters younger than 30. The Trump campaign believes young voters are worthy of outreach as well, and is focusing on young men and economic issues.
But as they deploy resources, campaigns have to consider the age-old question about investing time in this demographic: Will they vote?
Click here to find out.
What we’re reading and writing
Seaman seeks promotion to Las Vegas mayor after five years on the council by Howard Stutz
In separate profiles, The Nevada Independent explains everything you need to know about the two mayoral candidates.
At North Las Vegas roundtable, Trump paints himself as bringer of Latino prosperity by Isabella Aldrete
Fact checkers say Latinos fared similarly under Biden and Trump, with one expert calling it “a tie.”
In Nevada focus group, nonpartisan men of color supportive of abortion protections by Isabella Aldrete
More proof that a majority of Nevadans support legal abortion.
Four takeaways from Trump’s rally in Reno by Tabitha Mueller
Here’s a quick rundown (with fact checks) of Trump’s nearly 90-minute speech on Friday.
At Vegas town hall, Harris faces questions from Latinos on immigration, health care by Isabella Aldrete and Eric Neugeboren
The Harris campaign courts Latino voters. We’ll find out if it’s successful on Election Day.
After canceling its Nevada reservations, NRSC joins forces with Brown in hybrid ads by Gabby Birenbaum
Don’t worry, you’ll still see plenty of campaign ads up until Nov. 5.
Indy Poll Watch
Emerson College/The Hill (Oct. 5-8)
- 900 likely voters
- Margin of error: 3.2 percentage points
- Findings
- Harris 48%, Trump 47%
- Rosen 50%, Brown 42%
The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 28-Oct. 8)
- 600 likely voters
- Margin of error: 5 percentage points
- Findings: Trump 49%, Harris 43%
We got a big outlier poll this week with The Wall Street Journal, which found Trump to be leading by the kind of margin we haven’t seen since Biden was in the race. The last Republican to win the state — George W. Bush — never won Nevada by that large of a margin.
Interestingly, the Nevada finding was an outlier within the WSJ’s survey — every other state was within 2 percentage points, and Arizona, which has typically voted to the right of its neighbor Nevada, is in Harris’ column in this poll.
Emerson’s poll was more in line with other recent findings — it’s basically tied and Rosen is winning in the Senate race. Crosstabs-wise, Harris was up 16 percentage points with Hispanic voters — a 10-point swing toward Trump relative to 2020.
— Gabby Birenbaum
Indy Ad Watch
AD-NALYSIS OF THE WEEK: A new Harris housing ad
The Harris campaign began airing a new Nevada-specific ad Friday focused on housing costs, which are growing faster in Clark County than in the nation overall.
The ad features several Las Vegas residents who lament the cost of housing in the state and tout Harris’ record — such as her work as California attorney general to establish a “Homeowners Bill of Rights” — and housing policy proposals, which include building 3 million new homes and providing down payment assistance to first-time homeowners.
The ad underscores the growing importance of housing affordability as an issue in this year’s election. Trump has also made a point to discuss housing — including a vague proposal in a Las Vegas rally last month to free up federally owned land for affordable housing — and has tied increasing housing costs to illegal immigration, though many economists say it is not a major driver of higher costs.
Housing affordability is a particular concern in Nevada — especially in Clark County, where home prices have increased by 6.5 percent in the past year, much higher than the national average of 3.9 percent, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
TREND WE’RE FOLLOWING: Presidential ad spending narrowing?
Harris has held a commanding advertising advantage over Trump in the Silver State since August, but the three weeks until Election Day show a narrowing in future reservations.
Pro-Harris advertisers have reserved about $7.9 million in Nevada ad space across the next three weeks, while pro-Trump groups have reserved about $6.7 million in ad space, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact. A month ago, pro-Harris groups had reserved $9.2 million in the three-week stretch, while pro-Trump advertisers had reserved $2.3 million.
Among the reasons for the narrowing discrepancy is that Future Forward PAC, a pro-Harris group, canceled its future ad reservations in Las Vegas last week.
In 2020, Democrats significantly outspent Republicans on Nevada ads across the same three-week stretch, spending more than $14 million to the GOP’s $1.7 million. Future ad space for this cycle can still be reserved.
— Eric Neugeboren
The Lightning Round
🐘 GOP group drops three voter roll lawsuits — The Citizen Outreach Foundation, a group with ties to Nevada conservative activist Chuck Muth, voluntarily withdrew three lawsuits, filed in Clark and Washoe Counties and Carson City, asking courts to force the counties to process the group’s challenges to more than 30,000 voters' eligibility. Muth said in a blog post that he believed the lawsuits were in the right but had become an “expensive crap shoot” given that it was unclear whether judges would agree. Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar celebrated the dismissal Monday, calling the suits “meritless.”
❌ Nevada Supreme Court tosses long-shot abortion suit — The Nevada Supreme Court last week dismissed a lawsuit that sought to block Question 6, which asks voters whether abortion rights should be enshrined in the state Constitution. The suit argued the question misled voters because abortion is already legal in Nevada, and that it carried an unfunded mandate. The dismissal was not a surprise, given that the high court already dismissed an abortion ballot question suit earlier this year.
— Eric Neugeboren
Looking Ahead
- Friday, Oct. 18: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown is doing a live interview with The Nevada Independent at IndyFest. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) had declined an offer to have a debate at the event, although they will face off in a televised debate the night before.
- Saturday, Oct. 19: Former President Barack Obama is holding a rally to stump for Harris and down-ballot Democrats and encourage voters to participate in early voting.
- Saturday, Oct. 19: The Civic Responsibility Project, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization, will host a Party to the Polls on the day early voting begins in Las Vegas.
— Tabitha Mueller
And to ease you into the week, a few “posts” to “X” that caught our eye:
- Hats off to this monument to the unelected.
- I guess that’s one way to reach voters.
- Does this mean fall is *officially* here?
We’ll see you Thursday.
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