People line up to vote on the first day of in-person early voting at a tent at the Thunderbird Family Sports Complex in Las Vegas Saturday. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Unlike fellow presidential battleground states Georgia and North Carolina this year, Nevada did not smash a first day record for in person early voting Saturday.
But then, unlike Georgia and North Carolina, Nevada has had universal mail voting since the 2020 election, and Nevadans have exhibited an increasing preference for voting by mail ever since.
And you could say Nevada voters did break sort of a record Saturday – first day in person turnout was the largest since the state adopted universal mail voting for the 2020 election.
The Secretary of State’s office reported 42,237 people cast votes in Nevada Saturday.
In 2016, the last presidential election before Nevada sent mail ballots to all voters, 55,504 Nevadans cast ballots on the first day of in person early voting.
In 2020, the first presidential election year with universal mail voting, 39,248 people voted in person on the first day of early voting.
This year’s first day turnout was slightly less than the 42,308 Nevadans who voted on the first day of early voting in 2018, a midterm year when turnout was not being driven by a presidential race.
Roughly twice as many Republicans as Democrats showed up to vote in person Saturday. That’s a departure from patterns prior to the implementation of universal mail voting, when Democrats typically outperformed Republicans in early voting.
But it is an echo of 2020, when more Republicans than Democrats voted early in person, while Democrats outperformed Republicans in mail voting. In that election, Joe Biden ended up defeating Donald Trump in Nevada by 33,596 votes.
As of the weekend Republicans had a very slight edge over Democrats in statewide voting by mail – 12,892 to 12,312 – with another roughly 9,000 nonpartisan mail ballots cast. But glaringly missing from that data is Clark County, home of more than 70% of the state’s voters. Clark County election officials were not scheduled to begin announcing mail vote data until Monday.
The last day of early in person voting is Friday, Nov. 1. Election Day is Nov. 5.