Nevada

Nevada 2024 Trump-Harris Polls: Independents Will Propel Harris To Victory, Renowned Forecaster Predicts

Published

1 year ago

November 4, 2024

Nevada 2024 Trump-Harris Polls: Independents Will Propel Harris To Victory, Renowned Forecaster Predicts

Topline

Vice President Kamala Harris will eke out a narrow win against former President Donald Trump in the crucial swing state, veteran journalist Jon Ralston, who is revered for the accuracy of his presidential race predictions in the state, forecasted Monday, citing independent voters in the state he thinks will push Harris over the edge.

Donald Trump arrives at a Turning Point Action campaign rally on October 24 in Las Vegas.

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Key Facts

Harris will win 48.5% of the vote, Trump will win 48.2% and 3.3% of voters will select “none of these candidates” on their ballots, Ralston—CEO and editor of the nonprofit Nevada Independent who has a perfect record of predicting the outcome of presidential races in the state—wrote Monday, calling this year’s election “the hardest since I started doing this.”

Ralston’s prediction comes as Trump and Harris are virtually tied in other Nevada polls—FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average shows Trump with a 0.4-point edge.

Harris and Trump are tied at 48% in the final pre-election Emerson College/The Hill poll out Monday (margin of error 3.3 points), and Harris is up three points, 49%-46%, in a New York Times/Siena poll of likely Nevada voters released Sunday (margin of error 3.5 points).

Harris is also ahead 51%-47% in a survey of likely voters released last week by the Cooperative Election Study, a massive set of nationwide polls backed by universities (933 respondents).

Meanwhile, Trump is up 48%-47% in a CNN/SSRS survey released Tuesday (margin of error 4.6 points).

Harris also leads 48.8%-48.3%—essentially a tie—among likely voters in a Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey released Oct. 23 (margin of error 5 points), she trails Trump 47%-46% in an AARP survey of likely voters released Oct. 22 (margin of error 4), while a Wall Street Journal poll out Oct. 11 (margin of error 4) shows Trump with an unusually large five-point advantage.

Nevada—which is the smallest swing state, with just six electoral votes—has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in every election since 2008, and President Joe Biden beat Trump there by 2.4 points in 2020.

Surprising Fact

A plurality of voters, 30%, identify as independents in Nevada. Ralston predicts they will swing toward Harris, citing a new Democrat-backed law that automatically registers voters as nonpartisan at DMVs if they don’t choose a political party.

Tangent

The GOP has a lead in mail ballots that have been returned so far, raising their hopes of retaking the state. “Republicans are looking better in the early count than they ever have,” Jon Ralston, CEO and editor of the Nevada Independent who is highly respected for his early voting predictions, told Vox on Tuesday, a week before the election. Ralston said there are some indicators younger voters will cast their ballots later and that independents will favor Harris, however, which could swing the vote toward Democrats.

What To Watch For

The state does not release results until after the last voter in line when polls close at 10 p.m. EST casts their ballot. Mail-in ballots can be counted 15 days before Election Day, which could lead to quicker results than in 2020, but a state law that allows mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they are received by Nov. 9 could elongate the process. The majority of Nevada voters cast their ballots by mail.

Big Number

56%. That’s the share of Latino voters who identified with the Democratic Party in 2016, compared to 49% who do in 2024, according to a September NBC News/Telemundo/CNBC poll.

Key Background

Support for Harris among Latino voters will be crucial to her success in both Arizona and Nevada, where Hispanic and Latino people make up about 30% of the population and polls show she has lost support among the key demographic. Biden carried Latino voters in Nevada over Trump 61% to 35% in 2020, according to CNN exit polls, while Harris leads Trump 56% to 40% in Nevada, according to an October USA Today/Suffolk University poll of Latino voters. Harris is particularly struggling with Latino men, according to the survey that found 53% of male Latino voters ages 18-34 in Nevada support Trump and 40% support Harris, while 53% of Latino men ages 35-49 in the state support Trump and 39% support Harris. Immigration and inflation top the list of Latino voter concerns in Nevada, according to a USA Today/Suffolk poll, which found 37% said inflation was their top concern and 17% said immigration.

Tangent

The Harris campaign made a last-minute appeal to Hispanic men in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada this month with a “Hombres con Harris” tour featuring members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, including Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is running against Trump ally Kari Lake for the Senate in Arizona. The tour will include stops at Latino-owned small businesses, sports bars, restaurants, union halls and other community venues frequented by Latino men, her campaign said.

IN RESPONSE: Cortez Masto lands bill would keep the proceeds in Nevada

Published

11 hours ago

April 19, 2026

Press Room

IN RESPONSE: Cortez Masto lands bill would keep the proceeds in Nevada

A recent Review-Journal letter to the editor mischaracterized Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, also known as the Clark County Lands bill. As the former executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, I wholeheartedly support this legislation, so I wanted to set the record straight.

Sen. Cortez Masto has been working on this bill for years in partnership with state and local governments, conservation groups like the NCL and local area tribes. It’s true that the Clark County lands bill would open 25,000 acres to help Las Vegas grow responsibly, while setting aside 2 million acres for conservation. It would also help create more affordable housing throughout the valley while ensuring our treasured public spaces can be preserved for generations to come.

What is not correct is that the money from these land sales would go to the federal government’s coffers. In fact, the opposite is true.

The 1998 Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act is a landmark bill that identified specific public land for future sale and created a special account ensuring all land sale revenues would come back to Nevada. In accordance with that law 5 percent of revenue from land transfers goes to the state of Nevada for general education purposes, 10 percent goes to the Southern Nevada Water Authority for needed water infrastructure and 85 percent supports conservation and environmental mitigation projects in Southern Nevada. This legislation has provided billions to Clark County and will continue to benefit generations of Southern Nevadans. Sen. Cortez Masto’s lands bill builds upon the act’s success.

So here’s the good news: All of the money generated from land made available for sale under Sen. Cortez Masto’s bill would be sent to the special account created by the 1998 law. Rather than going to an unaccountable federal government, the proceeds would continue to help kids in Vegas get a better education, bolster outdoor recreation and modernize Southern Nevada’s infrastructure.

I know how important it is that money generated from the sale of public land in Nevada stay in the hands of Nevadans, and so does the senator. That’s why she opposed a Republican effort last year to sell off 200,000 acres of land in Clark County and other areas of the country that would have sent those dollars directly to Washington.

Public land management in Nevada should benefit Nevadans. We should protect sacred cultural sites and beloved recreation spaces, responsibly transfer land for affordable housing when needed and ensure our state has the resources it needs to grow sustainably. I will continue working with Sen. Cortez Masto to advocate for legislation, such as the Clark County lands bill, that puts the needs of Nevadans first.

Paul Selberg writes from Las Vegas.

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