Nevada Dem Gov Primary Quickly Turning Into “Bloodbath”

The Nevada Democrat gubernatorial primary race between Steve Sisolak and Chris Giunchigliani continues to grow more divisive as the two Clark County politicians level bitter attacks on one another. In a new column in the Nevada Independent, political journalist Jon Ralston warns that “a developing gubernatorial primary bloodbath could destroy the Democratic chances to recapture the state’s most important office for the first time in 20 years.”

To make matters worse for Nevada Democrats, Ralston also noted the party’s lackluster voter registration advantage, which has fallen to just 57,000 since November 2016. The GOP is now closer to the Democrats in registration than they were at this point in 2014, a year where Republicans swept statewide offices.

Jon Ralston writes in the Nevada Independent:

A year before the election, Nevada Democrats had every reason for confidence.

They had a nearly 80,000-voter lead over the Republicans in statewide registration. They looked competitive – or were favorites – in the major statewide and congressional contests…

The party’s registration advantage has shrunk by 30 percent since November, a developing gubernatorial primary bloodbath could destroy the Democratic chances to recapture the state’s most important office for the first time in 20 years…

If I were a Democrat these days, I’d be dreaming less of a blue wave in November than having a recurring nightmare of the last off-year election that had one of the bigger red waves in Nevada history…

Still, this is the first election cycle in the post-Harry-Reid-era, and the pre-filing signs are, if not yet ominous, worrisome for the Democrats. The proverbial eternity remains before Election Day, but the Democrats have shown no signs yet of the brilliantly oiled machine overseen by Prince Harry.

The voter registration numbers are instructive. The Democrats still have more than a 4 percent lead statewide – 57,000 voters. But that number compares unfavorably to the same time in 2014, when the lead was 63,000, and the last time Reid was on the ballot, also on off year, when it was just under 64,000. They also have lost more than 30,000 off the lead they had on Election Day ’16, the year that Nevada was a blue oasis in a national red sea.

The Democrats continue to assert they have not yet begun to register, which may be so. But also consider this: In both 2010 and 2014, they lost ground between February and the close of registration for the general election. (In presidential years, where turnout is much higher, the Democrats often add tens of thousands to the rolls in the last six months of a cycle.)…

Gubernatorial hopefuls Steve Sisolak and Chris Giunchigliani are from a government body, the Clark County Commission, that Harry Reid once said was a political boneyard. Team Reid has embraced Sisolak, but grudgingly, and Giunchigliani is going to give him all he can handle and force him to spend millions…”