With a hat tip to StevenD56 who posted a diary at 15:30 PST titled Nevada Early Voting Report. I took a quick look hours later then I had to get to work. I just looked it over again, and there were some questions in the comments. Stuff like how many voters are D/R, or what percentages have come in already. Here are how to find the answers to those questions, and how to follow the early voting in Nevada. See me below the orange-soon-to-be-an-SM-branding-iron.
Starting with the question on everyone's mind ("How are we doing in early voting?") the SOS issues a .pdf for each week, which is updated daily. Here is a link to Week 1, and the totals from 2008. The 2008 numbers aren't broken down by party, but as you can see, in the first two days of week 1 we are kicking some serious ass. Just in the first two days 49.9% of the votes are from registered Democrats, the rest going to Republicans (34%!!!) and "other" accounting for the rest. I'll have more on this later on.
pollwatcher wanted to know what percentage of Clark and Washoe we need to counteract the rest of the state. It's not quite that simple. In 2008, we took not only Clark and Washoe, but Carson City county. Okay, 1% is not an overwhelming number, but to get Carson City county even close is amazing. My scouts tell me that we're going to lose Carson City county by quite a bit this cycle, so we have to make it up elsewhere. From CNN.
JMcDonald and woody have questions that can be answered by voter registration tables. Nevada separates "Active" and "Inactive" voters, but provides "Total" (registered) numbers. The SOS also has breakdowns by age and party, and by districts. Here's 2012 and 2008.
Some wrap up notes: Why care about Nevada? After all, it's only six electoral votes! Well, if Romney loses Ohio, he has to run the table plus a marginal state. If Obama wins OH, great. If he loses OH, holding NV could make the difference. Besides, I live in CA, and NV is the closest swing state I can work in. Here's a clip from Morning Joe that discusses the importance of Nevada, start at ~11:00. Sorry, I dont know how to share just a portion of the clip.
Up above, when I did the breakdown of the first two days of early voting, I mentioned the percentage breakdown between D/R and "Other." The "Other" registration in Nevada is a bunch of small splinter parties, but by far the largest group of "other"s is decline to state/no party affiliation. The stats from Washoe county show that these folks are definitely Strong/Leaning Obama and a good percentage of them are Early Voters. I canvass as much as I can, because that's the only real way to take the temperature of the precinct, and again, as in 2008, Nevada and Washoe county in particular are not accustomed to being a swing state/county. In fact, many Washoe-ians (Washoe-ites?) find all of this attention annoying. But we carried the state in 2008 and we will again. our ground game is better, the R's had to stop their voter registration drive a week or two before the deadline, and we're ready to go.
I want to get this diary published before the debate starts tonight. The NV SOS website is great, and I will answer all questions posed in the comments. I don't know if it's allowed or not, but I'll try and repost this diary for other time zones and at the beginning of week 2 of early voting in Nevada. Maybe I'll even add a pole.
Update: Good morning, I'm still looking over the debate early polls, but I think Romney's going to keep his gains among white male voters. IMHO, that means we'll still have a nail-biter in two weeks.