LAS VEGAS — Nevada’s diverse, working-class and highly transient electorate — difficult to model and even harder to poll — has long confounded Washington’s political class.
This year, campaign operatives on the ground here are fumbling in the dark, too. And as they work to model the electorate, it’s a significant problem for Republican and Democratic strategists who are, with three weeks until Election Day, eyeing how this smallest of battleground states could be decisive to either a Donald Trump or Kamala Harris victory.
“Anybody that says they’re certain about where Nevada is going in this election is making it up,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who has long worked in the state. “Uncertainty reigns.”
Changes to the state’s voter registration process in the state and broader frustrations with the two-party system have over the last four years sparked an explosion in the ranks of registered independents, who now outnumber both Democrats and Republicans here. And a confluence of factors that make those voters difficult to find and poll have left strategists more flummoxed than usual about which way the state is likely to swing.