Democrats lost ground in many of their historic strongholds in Clark County’s urban core from the 2022 to 2024 elections, when President Donald Trump rewrote the political map in becoming the first Republican to win Nevada in two decades.

But there are slivers of hope for Democrats looking ahead to 2026. 

The Nevada Independent compared precinct and county commission-level election results from the 2022 and 2024 U.S. Senate races. Specifically, the analysis looked at how the GOP and Democratic Senate candidates’ share of the vote changed between 2022 and 2024 to better understand political trends on a more local level during the past two election cycles. 

The analysis focused on the Senate races because they were the only statewide races that took place during both years, and they are a reliable indicator of how voters will sway in down-ballot races.

The analysis revealed that although the Democratic candidate’s share of the vote decreased throughout the Las Vegas Valley, so did the GOP share (albeit by smaller margins), particularly in suburban areas. Meanwhile, the share of voters who did not participate in the Senate race or voted third party increased across the valley.

While Vice President Kamala Harris won Clark County in 2024, the county margins were tighter than ever — Trump trailed Harris by just over 27,000 votes out of more than 1 million cast in the county. Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) both carried the county en route to statewide victories in 2022 and 2024, although the victory margin shrunk last year.

The analysis provides new insight about political trends in Clark County (home to more than 70 percent of the state’s population) about 16 months before the 2026 general election, which will feature races for Nevada’s six constitutional officers and three county commission seats. It also provides a barometer into the voting patterns of Clark County residents at a time when the share of nonpartisan voters has surged, making voter registration statistics a less reliable predictor of results.

Given that 2022 was a midterm and 2024 was a presidential election, the analysis requires some caveats. More people turned out, but voters were more likely to skip the U.S. Senate race in 2024, and data suggests that a sizable portion of Trump’s voting bloc in Nevada abstained from many down-ballot races. Some precinct boundaries also shifted between elections, and the county precincts themselves have different voting populations, so some carry more weight in explaining the shifts from cycle to cycle.

County commission changes

Democrats currently hold 6 of 7 seats on the Clark County Commission, the largest and most powerful county commission in the state representing a population of more than 2 million people and overseeing a total budget of around $12 billion, according to the county's 2026 budget. This is nearly half of the state’s total spending budget of around $28 billion. 

Of the three commission seats up in 2026, this shift in voting trends will likely play out the most in District F, which stretches across the west-central part of the Las Vegas Valley and is one of the most purple of the commission’s seven districts in terms of voter registration. 

Commissioner Justin Jones, a Democrat dogged by a controversy over a development agreement, is running for re-election there after narrowly winning his 2022 race by about 300 votes. He’s facing a challenger in Las Vegas City Councilwoman Victoria Seaman, a Republican.

The Democratic share of the Senate vote among voters in the district dropped 2.26 percentage points from 2022 to 2024, third most among all county commission districts. But the GOP share of Senate votes also decreased slightly between the two elections, as people were inclined to either not vote or vote third party.

The other commission districts up in 2026 are District G — held by Democrat Jim Gibson, who won his previous two races by sizable margins — and District E, one of the bluest districts, which is occupied by Democrat Tick Segerblom.

Notably, Segerblom’s district had the second-largest shift away from Democrats from 2022 to 2024, The Indy found, underscoring that Democrats lost the most ground in their typical strongholds.

David Damore, a UNLV political science professor, said while this trend does not reverse the likelihood that Segerblom will be re-elected, it does reflect the larger implications of the county’s shifting political dynamics.

“In the aggregate, you certainly see this effect for statewide races,” he said.

Lisa Mayo-DeRiso, a conservative political consultant who is working for the campaign of District G candidate John Maxham and a potential candidate in District E, said in an interview that based on the voting trends, “I would be very nervous if I were a Democrat.”

Mayo-DeRiso, with almost three decades of experience working in local races in Clark County, attributes the county’s rightward swing to a few key issues, such as cost of living, crime and family concerns, such as parental rights, education and school choice — which could be a good sign for Republicans in 2026, especially for nabbing nonpartisan votes. 

“Overall, Las Vegas Valley is looking more conservative, which tells me that those nonpartisans are more likely to be in that same mindset and lean more conservative,” Mayo-DeRiso said. 

At the same time, it’s an open question whether the same economic conditions that hurt Democrats last year will provide the same lift for Republicans next year. Inflation has not slowed significantly since Trump entered office, and his tariff agenda remains unpopular in the Silver State, according to a recent poll from a Democratic firm.

Damore said that it’s still not clear how much will translate to future elections. He thinks the main reasons for the shift between 2022 and 2024 can be attributed to a lackluster economy and Republicans being more proactive in reaching communities that they had long ignored, particularly Latinos.

“They did go in the communities, they did canvassing, they did Spanish language advertising, which were things that Republicans always said they were gonna do here, but they never did,” he said.

Others say swings in voting have less to do with the major political parties and more to do with the ongoing swell of nonpartisan voters, who outnumber registered Republicans and Democrats and are cutting into both parties’ vote shares. Bradley Mayer, a political consultant with 17 years of experience working on county-level races, said minor losses and gains between parties are just part of the story. 

“The pendulum swings back and forth, reverting some level of balance between the parties,” said Mayer. “The real story in Nevada as a whole is the rise of the independent voter.” 

Where were the biggest changes?

Across Clark County, support for Rosen last year dropped by more than 3 percent compared with Cortez Masto's performance in 2022.

Although the political context surrounding each race was different — turnout in 2024 grew significantly compared with the 2022 midterm — precinct-level data reveals the widespread nature of Democratic voter share backsliding.

Rosen performed worse than Cortez Masto in 85 percent of county precincts, The Indy found. The underperformance was particularly concentrated in the city center — a typical Democratic stronghold with lower-income residents and significant racial diversity.

However, Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown still performed worse than 2022 Senate candidate Adam Laxalt in more than half of the county’s precincts, reflective of the growing contingent of voters supporting a third-party candidate or abstaining from the Senate race.

Damore said common knowledge holds that Democrats do better inside the 215 Beltway while Republicans perform better in wealthier suburbs, but the data suggests movement in the opposite direction — which could reflect some nationwide trends.

“Some of this may be reflecting the shifting educational, income divide that seems to be emerging at least under Trump — as Republicans are making inroads with working-class voters, they're losing higher-education and higher-income voters,” he said. “The good news for Republicans in Nevada is there’s way more working-class voters than there are there are higher socioeconomic status voters.” 

There were also other major political shifts among people of color. In the two Assembly districts with the highest shares of people of color, the Democratic share in the Senate races shrunk by more than 5 percentage points, while the GOP share increased, albeit by a smaller amount, according to Nevadata, the data firm run by Democratic campaign consultant Paul Selberg.

On paper, Asian and Latino communities saw some shifts to the right, but the tides may already be turning. A Democrat-commissioned poll in Nevada conducted at the end of May found Trump 26 points underwater among Latinos, while exit polls in 2024 found that he was 2 points above water among Nevada Latinos. Exit polls show that about 60 percent of Asian Americans in Nevada voted for Trump, but NPR reported in May that some are already regretting their votes.

In Assembly Districts 11 and 28 — districts with the highest share of Latino voters — the Democratic share of votes in the two Senate races decreased by between roughly 4 and 6 percentage points between 2022 and 2024, while the GOP share increased slightly in one and decreased slightly in the other, according to Nevadata.

Peter Guzman, president of the Nevada Latin Chamber of Commerce, said he’s noticed the same trend among Latino voters.

“They're paying attention to their wallets, their economic position,” Guzman said. “Hispanics are just like everybody else. They want to live in safe communities, safe cities … They want an environment where it's business friendly and they can conduct business.” 

In the two Assembly districts with the highest share of Black voters, Democrats and Republicans both saw their share of the vote decrease, though the Democratic backsliding was larger, according to Nevadata.

Meanwhile, the southwest part of Clark County with larger shares of Asian American voters saw Democratic backsliding — but not necessarily all toward the right. In the two Assembly districts with the highest share of Asian American voters, the Democratic share decreased by at least 3 percentage points between the two Senate races, but almost all of those shifts went to voters who chose a third-party candidate or abstained, according to Nevadata. 

Eric Jeng, executive director for the Asian American advocacy group One APIA Nevada, echoed that the economy was a top priority for voters, but noted he had heard from young people in his community who were disaffected by messaging from Democratic leaders leading into the 2024 election. 

“It’s not voter apathy. It's kind of disillusionment,” Jeng said. “Either from Gaza or seeing how the administration handled student loan forgiveness, and … all this climate change stuff that we know younger generations listed as their number one issue.”