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Non-partisan voters now make up the largest voting bloc in Nevada.
As we’ve been reporting, the Nevada Democratic Party continues to experience a decline in active registered voters compared to the Republican Party and non-partisans. Currently, both major parties have fewer active registered voters than the non-partisan group.
From 2020 to 2023, the Nevada Democratic Party was the only group to lose voter share statewide. As of December, Nevada Democrats comprise 29.72% of voters, with 626,538 active registered voters, marking the largest decrease.
Meanwhile, Nevada Republicans make up 29.53% of the electorate, with 622,371 active registered voters, reflecting a slight increase.
Nonpartisan voters account for 33.31% of the statewide voter share, with 702,143 active registered voters, indicating a slight increase as well.
“The growth in non-partisan in this state; you can track it back to 2010,” said Nevadans for Election Reform Executive Director Doug Goodman.
Nevada Democrats are experiencing the most significant decrease in voter share, Republicans have seen a slight increase, and non-partisan voters are showing considerable growth. One argument for this trend is that non-partisan status has become the default option for automatic voter registration at the DMV for Nevadans.
“I don’t buy into it that,” said Goodman. “Simply because if that were the case, you would see a change leading up to the primaries, which in Nevada are closed for either major party. We don’t see that.”
Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar has submitted a comprehensive election modernization bill, with one provision aimed at differentiating non-partisan or independent-minded voters from those who might appear uninterested in participating in the electoral process.
“The default status, instead of being non-partisan, will now be Non-Political Party (NPP),” said Goodman. “If you just don’t fill it out, throw it away, and it defaults to non-partisan; it will now default to what will look like NPP, which will make it easier to track because NPP will be the people who are defaulting.”
Goodman argues that this new provision will further highlight the trend of an increasing number of Nevadans choosing not to affiliate with either major party.
When you have two major parties, you see that there are a lot of new voters, but they are not registering with either of the main parties,” Goodman explained. “That’s just simple math.”
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