GOP keeps razor-thin majority in Nevada

Thursday, Aug. 19, 1999 | 9:10 a.m.

Latest figures show there are 372,464 Republicans registered in Nevada, a 504-voter lead over Democrats, who have 371,960 registered party members.

The GOP has kept a lead over Democrats of 1,000 or fewer registered voters since February.

For more than 60 years, the Democrats were the majority party in Nevada, even holding more than a 2-to-1 voters lead in the 1960s. But in October 1995, the Republicans became the most popular party for the first time since the Depression.

By April 1996, the Republican lead over Democrats reached more than 10,000 voters. Since that time, the Democrats have been steadily cutting into the margin and threatening to again become the most popular party.

Besides the Republican and Democrats voter figures, an additional 125,611 people were registered as nonpartisan at the end of July. There were 16,827 Independent Americans, 4,965 Libertarians and 840 Green Party members.

In all, 895,752 people were registered to vote, down about 10,000 from the record number of registrations reached last December. Voter registrars since have removed some people from the registrations for not voting for several elections.