New numbers released in a key swing state show that Republicans have virtually erased the Democrat voter-registration lead, on top of historic early-voting numbers for Republicans, which one expert tells Fox News Digital is part of an effective strategy on the ground targeting a key demographic.
Figures released by the Nevada Secretary of State on Friday showed that Democrats hold a 9,200-vote lead in registrations over Republicans after October data was added. Four years ago, Democrats held an advantage of roughly 86,000 votes heading into Election Day.
On top of significantly narrowing the registration gap, Republicans have had a historically high early-vote turnout and lead Democrats by about 5% in the early vote, which ended in person on Friday, while trailing in mail-in votes.
Early voting concluded in Nevada with 393,811 votes cast for Republicans, 344,539 for Democrats, and 287,762 for other affiliations, according to the Secretary of State website.
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Former President Donald Trump and VP Kamala Harris(Getty Images)
The roughly 49,000 vote advantage that Republicans had over Democrats at the end of the week is a stark contrast from 2020, when Democrats ended early voting with a 43,000-vote advantage.
Biden won Nevada by roughly 34,000 votes in 2020.
The Democratic turnout advantage in the state in years past has been driven by what is known as the “Reid Machine” that late Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015, established to help pool resources to maximize support for candidates up and down the ballot.
His approach tapped into networks that extended well beyond the traditional party structure. He leaned especially on the heavily immigrant Culinary Union, which represents about 60,000 casino workers and leads efforts to register voters, make phone calls and knock on doors.
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“That paradigm has changed,” Nevada’s GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo said in Carson City on Friday. “That dynamic has changed. It has changed, and we are in the game. We are in the game, and it helps that you had a crappy president for the last four years.”
A large part of that paradigm shift, Sentinel Action Fund President Jessica Anderson told Fox News Digital, has to do with the work that organizations like hers have done in battleground states along with the Republican Party.
“You had candidates up and down the ballots, including President Trump and Senate candidates in all of the target states, embracing early voting,” Anderson said. “The candidate has to be brought in themselves. So that’s really important. And then the other three things I think that made a difference was the messaging around absentee early votes. The first is that a lot of the focus was on convenience. It’s, you know, it’s more convenient. You’re busy. You can skip the line of Election Day, vote early. You know, you’re busy with your kids, your child care, your job. You know, whatever those things are that can potentially interrupt your plans on Election Day, just take the convenience of voting early or dropping your ballot in the mail and get a difference. I think that message really worked.”
“The second message that we saw really encapsulated and worked in particular in the mail was the military messaging. That it works for our guys overseas, it’s safe, it’s convenient, it’s secure. Then the third, which was, I think, really unique to President Trump and his leadership here as we talked about voting early to overcome the margin of fraud and that did exceptionally well in our focus groups. And then when we presented some of that information to President Trump and to others in the party over time, that became kind of the clarion call of the RNC, you know, ‘Vote early.’ So it’s too big to rig.”
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Anderson said that Sentinel Action Fund has also embraced ballot harvesting and that one of the keys to Republican success has been the strategic targeting of low-propensity voters who have not voted in years past.
Some experts have wondered whether strong GOP early-vote turnout in Nevada, and nationwide, would “cannibalize” the historically strong Election Day turnout that Republicans usually enjoy in a situation where Election Day voters are simply just voting early, and Republicans will have a weaker turnout on Election Day.
Anderson told Fox News Digital that Sentinel Action Fund’s data and modeling in Senate races in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada show that the GOP vote is not being cannibalized.
“I know it’s not happening, because we can see it in the data,” Anderson said, pointing to Sentinel Action Fund modeling in the Senate race between GOP Senate candidate Sam Brown and incumbent Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen.
SWING STATE GOP CANDIDATE COULD HIT MAJOR MILESTONE IN MAYORAL RACE AMID ‘REPUBLICAN WAVE’ OPTIMISM
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US singer Jennifer Lopez (L) greets US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a campaign rally at the Craig Ranch Amphitheater in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 31, 2024. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
“Democrats and Republicans appear to be getting ballots from the same percentage of high- and low-propensity voters, but Democrat Jacky Rosen’s votes are coming disproportionately through the mail,” Anderson wrote on Substack on Friday.
“Meanwhile, Sam Brown is winning in-person ballots at a ratio of 1.35 to 1. If the Reid machine is unable to match Republicans during early voting, it’s hard to see it mobilizing for an Election Day surge. There is good reason to believe that Sam Brown can continue to perform well through Election Day.”
Some political pundits and politicians outside the Republican Party have also sounded the alarm for Democrats in Nevada in terms of the GOP early-vote surge.
“Republicans are kicking our ass at early voting,” Nevada Democratic Congresswoman Dina Titus said during a Harris rally in North Las Vegas. “We cannot let that happen.”
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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Respected Nevada journalist Jon Ralston, CEO and Editor of the Nevada Independent, acknowledged on X on Friday that “you’d rather be GOP than Dems as in-person early voting ends today” but pointed out that three remaining variables are “key,” including Clark County mail figures, the independent vote and Election Day turnout.
On Saturday, Ralston posted on X, “NV voter update: GOP extends lead to 49 K statewide. That’s 4.8 percent. Rural landslide continues. It’s now Clark mail or bust for Dems, steep climb.”
Nevada has voted for every Democrat who has run for president since 1992, except the two elections with President George W. Bush on the ballot. However, the average margin across those eight elections is just 4.1 points.
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Nevada’s six electoral votes are expected to play a critical role in determining which candidate wins the presidential election, and the Real Clear Politics average of polls shows Trump with a slim 1.5-point lead.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to AndrewMark.Miller@Fox.com.
The Interior Department on Friday kick-started the process to streamline permitting for oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Interior said it had received a petition for rulemaking from the Alaska Oil and Gas Association earlier this month. In response, the department plans to launch a 45-day public scoping period as the first step toward permitting oil projects in the reserve more quickly.
The AOGA petition argues that the environmental impacts of oil developments in the NPR-A, such as ConocoPhillips’ Willow project, have been “exhaustively analyzed” and similar new proposals shouldn’t have to undergo the same review.
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“The rulemaking will establish pre-defined criteria for defined and repeatable common activities with similar environmental effects that, when met by an applicant, will result in streamlined permitting for qualifying production sites,” Interior wrote in a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement.
Paradise Valley 16-year-old Gadin Arun is one of three American boys who helped lead Team USA to victory at Junior Davis Cup Qualifying in Canada. The Junior Davis Cup, tennis’s premier international team event, will be held later this year, at a time and location yet to be announced. Arun, who is homeschooled, is the 26th ranked American in his age group, and second in the Southwest, according to the USTA.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
The Chevron refinery in Richmond is located behind a nearby neighborhood on Feb. 21, 2024. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
California is considering handing oil refineries and other major polluters billions of dollars in free emission allowances just as the state says carbon reductions need to come faster than ever.
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In the last six months, two refineries have closed and gas prices have topped an average of $6 a gallon as the Iran-Israel war sent oil markets into turmoil. The oil and gas sector spent $10.3 million lobbying Sacramento in the first three months of the year, according to lobbying filings, with the Western States Petroleum Association and Chevron accounting for the bulk of it.
The result is a new proposal before the California Air Resources Board that would provide as much as $4 billion in new free emission permits to companies with half slated for the fossil fuel industry in exchange for commitments to invest in clean energy.
Environmentalists warn the proposal is a giveaway to Big Oil that would weaken California’s “cap-and-invest” program just as the state is relying on it to cut emissions and fund climate, housing and other programs. Anthony Martinez, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the changes are necessary to keep the state’s carbon market “durable” and “affordable” amid mounting refinery closures.
The fight over California’s carbon market has exposed the political tensions at the heart of Newsom’s energy transition agenda. California is trying to preserve its climate ambitions while keeping gasoline affordable for drivers already facing the highest prices in the country. Critics say the air board’s proposal accomplishes neither goal.
“We are really concerned that this would significantly kneecap the program,” said Chloe Ames, a policy adviser with NextGen Policy.
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Weakening the backstop
Through California’s 13-year-old carbon market, major polluting companies must buy permits for every ton of greenhouse gases they emit, with the state capping total emissions year by year. Each permit is worth real money and companies can sell the ones they don’t use. The program is considered California’s climate backstop — the only state policy that sets a firm limit on greenhouse gas emissions.
At the heart of the dispute with environmentalists is a proposed subsidy program carved out of that carbon market. The air board, if it approves the proposal on May 28, would create a new pool of free pollution permits for refineries, cement plants and other big companies that pledge to invest in clean energy and efficiency projects.
The pool would be capped at 118.3 million permits — the same number the air board has said must come off the market for California to hit its 2030 climate target. Environmentalists say the proposal risks wiping out those reductions.
Berkeley energy economist Meredith Fowlie, who chairs an independent committee that oversees the carbon market, wrote in a recent analysis that the design would give qualifying refineries more free permits than they need to cover their emissions.
“One could use the word generous,” Fowlie said.
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Rajinder Sahota, the air board official overseeing the program, said the proposal would ensure emissions reductions. The new permits, she said, would only go to companies undertaking clean energy and efficiency projects and would be limited, temporary and rescinded if companies misuse them. The plan is meant to help keep refineries operating in California at a time of uncertainty, she added.
“We want to make sure that there’s reliable, affordable fuel for California consumers while the demand persists,” Sahota said.
But environmentalists say the air board has built in almost no accountability for how companies invest in those projects. Katelyn Roedner Sutter, state director for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the proposal “is based on proposed investment, not any guaranteed reduction.”
“That’s a red flag,” she said.
A climate money crunch
Quarterly auction revenue for state programs could drop from roughly $4 billion a year to about $2 billion under the proposal, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
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Sen. John Laird, the state Senate budget chair and a co-author of California’s original 2006 climate law, warned at a May 6 hearing that the proposal “flies against many things we negotiated just last fall” with the governor and could put the carbon market deal “back on the table.”
Not all lawmakers are critical. Assemblymembers Jacqui Irwin and Cottie Petrie-Norris, who respectively chair climate and energy committees, said the proposal “reflects the Legislature’s focus on affordability,” and urged the board to proceed “without delay.”
They pointed to an increase in the Climate Credit, the twice-yearly rebate that the carbon market funds on Californians’ utility bills; a UC Santa Barbara analysis, however, found the new subsidy could shrink the credit by as much as $1.7 billion under the proposal.
A separate, bipartisan group including Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat, and Senator Suzette Valladares, a Republican, argues the purpose of the carbon market is to cut emissions, not raise money for programs.
Newsom struck an eleventh-hour deal with lawmakers last year that extended the state’s carbon market through 2045 and set the order of which state programs get auction money first.
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Under that plan, California’s high-speed rail project receives $1 billion a year before many other programs. Lawmakers also carved out a $1 billion annual pool for priorities they control themselves, but Newsom in January proposed committing that money to wildfire spending and other programs.
Last in line are programs lawmakers have spent years building into California’s climate agenda: affordable housing and transit-oriented development meant to reduce driving and climate pollution, rail and bus service, wildfire resilience, clean drinking water in poor communities and neighborhood pollution monitoring.
Newsom unveiled a revised state budget on May 14 that did not reflect the potential drop in carbon market revenue. Laird, in an interview, said the administration told him the revenue drop wouldn’t show up in the coming fiscal year.
Laird said he planned to “ground truth” that assessment in the weeks ahead. The hit “would still be a big hit the year after this budget year,” he added.
Big Oil’s biggest target
California’s carbon market became a central focus of the oil industry’s lobbying efforts after the air board released a January proposal sharply reducing free pollution permits for industry.
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Seven of the 10 highest-spending oil and gas lobbying groups in California pushed state officials on the proposal, state filings show. The petroleum association and Chevron mounted some of the industry’s most aggressive lobbying, pressing lawmakers, the governor’s office, the air board and the California Energy Commission on the plan.
The April plan raised free permits for most industries through 2030 above the January version, but deferred decisions on permits after 2030 to a future rulemaking.
Jim Stanley, a spokesman for the petroleum association, said the group has been pressing lawmakers, regulators and the governor’s office about “the potential consequences of a poorly structured cap-and-invest program.”
Chevron spokesman Ross Allen declined to comment beyond letters Chevron filed with the air board. Chevron initially warned the proposal threatened refinery survival in California. After last month’s revisions, the company is continuing to push for additional protections.
Zach Leary, a lobbyist for the petroleum association, said California needs to go further than even its latest proposal. He wants California to lock in a higher level of free permits permanently.
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“The state is acknowledging that affordability and ambition are not getting along very well right now,” Leary said.
Eddie Ahn, executive director of Brightline Defense, oversees community air sensors in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, Mission and South of Market neighborhoods funded through the state’s community air protection program. That program is among those that could lose state money if carbon market auctions decline under the proposal.
“If the funding is cut off, then convening groups of people on a monthly basis — that goes away,” Ahn said. “It means frontline communities get disconnected from environmental policy.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
