Clean-up of Voter Rolls Benefits GOP

The November, 2015 voter registration figures released on December 1, 2015 by the Nevada Secretary of State’s office held a pleasant surprise for the Republican Party. A clean-up of the active voter list; a movement of 17,416 voters to the inactive rolls and a net decrease in active voters of 13,792, resulted in the GOP gaining just under 0.2% of voter share from October, 2015.

The GOP was the only category to pick up voter share state-wide as a result of the scrub. The same is true for Clark and Washoe Counties and the 18 – 34 and 55+ year old demographics. Non-Partisan registration as share of voters showed no change in Washoe County.

The rural counties were the only demographic to buck the trend. There, Non-Partisan and minor parties gained voter share while the Democratic and Republican Party lost slightly.

Do Nevada state and federal elected officials and candidates starting campaigns have anything to be concerned about?  In 12 of the 21 State Senate districts (57.14%) the combined number of voters registered as Non-Partisan or to minor political parties exceeds or is within 5 percent of the number of voters registered as either Democratic or Republican. For the Assembly, the number is 27 out of the 42 districts (64.29%) In the first Congressional District, 27 percent of voters are not registered as either Democratic or Republican. The number of voters registered as Non-Partisan (21.24%) is only 1.94 percent lower than the Republican registration of 23.18 percent.

Given the 1.13 percent reduction of active voters in November, I don’t think this is a reversal of the trend in movement away from the major political parties. We’ll have to wait until the December and January numbers are released to make that determination.