Early vote a bad omen for Reid

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Early vote a bad omen for Reid By: Molly Ball October 19, 2010 01:57 PM EDT fficeffice" />>>

Early-voting numbers out of Nevada’s two biggest counties could spell trouble for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his tough contest against Republican Sharron Angle. In Reno’s Washoe County and Las Vegas’s Clark County, Republican turnout was disproportionately high over the first three voting days, according to local election officials. The two counties together make up 86 percent of the state’s voter population. The sparsely populated counties outside Clark and Washoe, which have yet to report complete early-voting results, are strongly Republican. Some 47 percent of early voters in the bellwether Washoe County so far have been Republicans, while 40 percent have been Democrats, according to the Washoe County Registrar. Nearly 11,000 people had voted in Washoe over the first three days of early voting, which began Saturday. Voter registration in the county is evenly split, 39 percent to 39 percent. The disproportionate turnout is a concrete indication of the Republican enthusiasm that is expected to portend a nationwide GOP wave. In Clark County, which is heavily Democratic, more Democrats than Republicans have voted, but Republicans are outperforming their share of the electorate. Out of the nearly 47,000 votes cast in Clark County, 46 percent were Democrats, 39 percent Republicans, according to the Clark County Election Department. But while Democrats make up 46 percent of the county's registered voters, Republicans constitute just 33 percent. Washoe County is home to Angle, a former Reno state legislator, whereas Reid's hometown of Searchlight is in Clark County. Democrats disputed the notion that these numbers represented a boost for the GOP, noting that more Democrats than Republicans had gone to the polls overall in the two counties. “Republicans have a small lead in terms of raw votes cast in Sharron Angle’s backyard and after a day in which Sarah Palin hosted a GOTV rally,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said of the Washoe numbers. He added that focusing on Washoe “ignores that this is a statewide election.” But the Democrats’ overall raw-vote advantage in Clark and Washoe is up against their likely deficit in the yet-uncounted rural counties and among independent voters, whom polls have shown heavily favoring Republicans this year.>> "This makes for a pretty significant uphill battle for Democrats," Las Vegas-based Republican consultant Ryan Erwin said. "It's still early, but we're seeing that the enthusiasm gap is certainly real in Washoe County, especially when you factor in that Clark County Republicans are overperforming as well." In the suburban Las Vegas-based 3rd Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Dina Titus faces a challenge from Republican Joe Heck, the parties are nearly tied in early turnout despite Democrats' registration advantage. Early voters were 43 percent Democrats, 41 percent Republicans, while registration was 42 percent Democrats and 36 percent Republicans. Reid's campaign sees its extensive get-out-the-vote infrastructure as crucial to the senator's prospects in a contest polls have shown to be deadlocked. Angle hopes the pro-GOP national climate and voters’ dislike for Reid will sweep her to the Senate. Democrats said they are confident they are hitting their targets. "The Democratic Party is feeling good about turnout," state party spokeswoman Phoebe Sweet said. "While we're taking no vote for granted, what we're seeing is on par with our expectations thus far." Statewide, Democrats have an edge of about 60,000 registered voters more than Republicans, but that represents a decline from 2008, when their advantage was over 100,000. The Democratic turnout machine that powered President Obama to a 12-percentage-point victory in Nevada was kept in place after the 2008 election to work for Reid's reelection this year. But early figures in the first few days of the 2008 voting strongly favored Democrats. "Harry Reid has spent millions of dollars on the Nevada Democratic Party turnout machine, and it's really, really good," Erwin, the GOP consultant, said. "But with independents breaking heavily for Republicans, Democrats are going to have to overperform their registration advantage to win this year." Nevada’s two-week early voting period, which tends to account for half or more of total election turnout, ends on Oct. 29.>>

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