Silver State bucks trend tracked by Silver

Although non-partisan registration has grown in Nevada since 2008, the state's overwhelming Democratic surge has gone counter to a trend in many states.

This afternnon, statistics guru Nate Silver of The New York Times put out a series of Tweets about trends in the 15 states that track voter registration every month. Most recent Tweet at top:

Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight

Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight

2h

And in last couple of months, Dem registrations are mediocre, but GOP numbers worse. Both parties losing ground to indies.

 

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Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight

2h

Since 2008, the Dem share of voter registrations is down slightly. But all gains among independents/others, not GOP.

 

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Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight

2h

The big story is that there's a major surge in voters registering as independent, unaffiliated, or with minor parties.

 

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Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight

2h

15 states track monthly data on voter registration by party. In those states since 7/1, 34% of new voters are Dems, 20% GOP, 46% other.

But Nevada does not fit so neatly into this statistical box. Here's why:

Nevada has indeed seen an increase in non-major-party registrations. But since July 1, the real growth has been in Democratic Party numbers. Here are the facts:

In 2012, the major parties make up 78 percent of Nevada's electorate (non-partisans are 16.7 percent); in 2010 at the general election, that number was 79 percent (non-partisans were 15.6 percent); and in 2008 at the general, it was just under 80 percent (non-partisans were 15 percent).

So the major parties here have lost about 2 percent off their share of the electorate since Barack Obama was first elected while non-partisan registration has increased slightly less than that amount.

But since July, which is the time frame Silver measured, Nevada bucks the trend he tracked. To wit:

·         47 percent are Democrats  (+13 percent compared to the combined 15 states)

·         32 percent are other (-14 percent compared to the combined 15 states)

·         21 percent are Republicans (+1 percent compared to the combined 15 states)

In Nevada, new Democratic registrations are outperforming the 15 state numbers by a net of 12 percent in the same time frame.

That is a stark trend for Republicans here, unless, of course, they really are hiding a bunch of their voters among the new non-partisan voters, as they claim. If not, as I argue and detail in the Premium Content portion of the site, the math becomes very difficult.