NEVADA’S NEW HUE

Michael J. Mishak and Alex Richards

Sunday, Sept. 9, 2007 | 1:20 a.m.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS MORRIS

A funny thing happened in red-state Nevada over the past year. It turned blue.

An analysis of voter registration reports over the past 12 months shows many more new voters are registering as Democrats - enough to tilt Nevada to a considerable Democratic majority for the first time since the 1992 presidential election.

Back then, Nevada was a solid blue state. Registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by 7 percentage points, and the state voted for Bill Clinton.

Today, the unpopular Iraq war and enthusiasm for the Democratic presidential caucus es are playing major roles in giving Nevada Democrats their first significant registration advantage in 15 years.

The details:

As of August, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 2,800 "active voters," a subset of total registration introduced last year that is considered more accurate because it counts only those voters whose addresses are still valid. The state has 1,033,569 active voters.

Nevada Republicans had held the voter registration edge for the past three presidential elections. At the close of registration for the 2006 election , Republicans outnumbered Democrats by about 7,000 active voters.

Republicans claimed victory at the top of the ticket in November, winning the governor's mansion. But they narrowly beat back Democratic challenges in two congressional races , and Democrats swept all but one of the remaining statewide offices.

Democrats seem to have made their move when the Nevada Democratic Party began preparations last fall for the state's second-in-the-nation presidential caucus es .

Six months after the election, Democrats had retaken the majority, having picked up speed in February - the month of the first-in-the-nation Democratic forum in Carson City - and surpassing Republicans in April, as candidates campaigned here. The gains, for the most part, have been in Clark County.

Party officials, political scientists and local historians attribute the Democratic surge largely to the caucus es , which have attracted monthly visits from the party's leading presidential candidates, in addition to dozens of paid campaign organizers who travel the state registering voters and seeking support.

"Right now is a good time to be a Democrat," UNR political scientist Eric Herzik said.

The Iraq war, fiscal irresponsibility and various Washington scandals have demoralized Republicans and unified Democrats, Herzik said. At the same time, the Nevada Republican Party, after a year of poor leadership and lackluster fund raising, is struggling to raise the profile of its presidential caucus es . It has attracted marginal attention from the party's presidential candidates.

Nevada historian Michael Green said Republican dominance in Nevada is a recent development, with the party picking up steam here in the late 1980s. Republicans started to gain a foothold empowered by the Reagan years, a presidential message of low taxes and small government, and demographic changes, Herzik said.

"Republicans were selling the right product at the right time for Nevada," he said. The advent of major corporate ownership of gaming and the casino industry's aversion to taxes also have aided Republicans by giving them well-funded allies, Green said.

The party's momentum, combined with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994, led to the party's high-water mark in 2002, when Republicans captured all the state's constitutional offices.

The tide has now turned, with the Democratic caucus es serving as a much-needed party-building vehicle. "The important thing for the Democrats is it has allowed them to engage their groups early and get all parts of the party active and organized," Herzik said.

Another bright spot for Democrats: The party will have same-day registration for the Jan. 19 caucus es . Republicans, however, have instituted a Dec. 20 registration deadline for their contest.

Nevada's transient population has long made it a microcosm of America's election preferences. Since 1908, Nevada has voted for the winner of every presidential election, save one. The state voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter in 1976.