If you’ve followed the past few national election cycles, you’ve noticed a discernable pattern. And it’s one that’s familiar with those in other critical battleground states.
The Democratic ground game cracks the whip and the Democrats have a massive early voter turnout. In most states, those votes are sorted and tabulated early, and are the first major tranche of votes released within 30 minutes or so of polls closing. Steve Kornacki of MSNBC is fond of reminding viewers that that first tranche of largely early votes is the best results Democratic candidates will get, then wait for the GOP cow county election day ballots to be counted.
But likely not this year. According to the Zen Master of Nevada politics, Jon Ralston, things have changed. After a decade of Traitor Tot and the GOP trashing early and mail in ballots, putting the state GOP behind the 8-ball, this cycle the state GOP has aggressively courted rural voters, their base, to vote early and by mail. Apparently the rural voters have been listening, causing what Ralston calls a rural red tsunami. So likely that first tranche of largely early and mail in ballots this election night will be far closer than on previous election nights.
But not to panic, it should all still come out right in the end. Because there’s still a problem with this GOP strategy. As I’ve written previously, 2 million votes is still nothing more or less than 2 million votes, no matter when the ballots are cast. A massive GOP early vote on election means a puny election day GOP turnout. And by their nature, the cow counties have fewer voters than the urban areas like Reno, Lake Tahoe and Clark county.
The Democrats still have two critical advantages. For one thing, the GOP’s ground game is dependent on that poltroon Elon Musk’s ragtag mob. And by it’s rural location, a ground game is much more difficult because of the distance between voters, and to the polling places.
On the other hand, the Democrats have the almost invincible Reid Machine in Clark County, named after former Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid. I have compared them to the infamous Daley machine in their glory days in Cook County, Illinois.
The linchpins of this formidable army is the all powerful Culinary Workers Union, along with her sister powerhouse, the Service Employees International Union. Between the two, if somebody is employed in almost any position in a hotel, casino, restaurant, or bar in urban Nevada, they’re almost certainly a member of one of those two unions. And as I’ve already written, both unions already have a massive presence, at least in Clark County, beating the pavement and rounding up the votes. Ralston himself admitted that when it comes to a ground game matchup between the Reid Machine and Musk’s morons, it isn’t even a fair fight.
But here’s the McGuffin, and definitely something to look for on election night. Unlike almost anywhere else, Democratic union members working in Hotel-casinos pretty much anywhere in the state have a really excellent reason to vote on election day. And that’s because thanks to their union contract, the hotel-casinos set up dedicated employee polling places on site, and the employees get paid time off to go and vote on election day. Why stand in line for free when you can get paid to do it?
So now you know. This year, when the polls close at 7 pm PDT, look for a much closer race in that first tranche of largely early and mail in votes, likely with the Democrats still holding the lead, but then watch for the Democrats to start to pull away when the election day votes start to come in. It’s just simple math. The GOP has had basically no ground game to try to recruit new voters the last two years, and Musk’s morons can’t help with that. But Reid’s Machine has full time offices open all year, and they started the ground game outreach a whole helluva lot earlier than the GOP. Keep punching and keep the faith.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Thanks for the info Murf.
Nevada means home!
No voting day ‘red wave’, but instead, a ‘blue wave’.
Sounds right with all those workers voting on election day, and the R vote being smeared out over a longer time.
Good news!