Nine Assembly Districts Targeted – Who Will Actually Decide

In a story published Sunday, October 11, 2015 in the Reno Gazette Journal, Ray Hagar reports on the nine key assembly districts being targeted by the Democratic Party in 2016. Democratic Party leadership sees these districts as key to regaining the majority in the State Assembly for the 2017 Nevada Legislature session.  The article highlights the advantage the Democratic Party has in voter registration in each of the nine districts as being the largest factor in the Democratic favor. However, assuming voter turnout will be high; the average turnout in presidential years is over 75%, those affiliated with the two major political parties will not decide the outcome. That privilege belongs to the nearly 27% of voters registered as either Non-Partisan (21%) or as members of a minor political party (6.9%).

As of September 30, 2015, voter registration in the nine targeted districts is:

District	Dem	Rep	NP	Minor Party	Total not D or R
5	40.4	34.6	19.6	5.4	25.0
8	43.3	29.1	21.8	5.8	27.6
9	39.0	32.8	22.1	6.1	28.2
10	48.3	25.1	20.7	5.9	26.6
21	40.0	33.6	20.1	6.3	26.4
29	38.0	35.8	20.2	6.0	26.2
34	43.6	31.1	19.5	5.8	25.3
35	37.6	33.0	23.1	6.3	29.4
41	39.5	33.3	21.0	6.2	27.2

As I highlight on this blog each month, the number of voters not registered to vote in either the Democratic or Republican Parties continues to grow. To win any race, candidates will have to win the support of those voters.