Nevada: How We Win

2024 Electoral Goals

Presidency: Win Nevada’s six electoral votes.
U.S. Senate: Re-elect Senator Jacky Rosen.
U.S. House: Defend 3-1 House delegation majority.
Governorship: Not up for election until 2026.
State Assembly: Hold supermajority by defending 5 potentially vulnerable incumbents in Assembly Districts 7, 21, 25, 29, and 35; and potentially flipping Districts 2 and 4.
State Senate: Win a supermajority by flipping Senate District 5, 15, or 18.
Ballot: Qualify and win the Nevada Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment.

Political Landscape

Presidential Vote Margins			U.S. Senate Vote Margins
2020	D	+2.4%	2022	D	+0.8%
2016	D	+2.4%	2018	D	+5.0%
2012	D	+6.6%	2016	D	+2.4%
2008	D	+12.4%	2012	R	-1.1%

Balance of Power

U.S. Senate: 2 Democrats
U.S. House: 3 Democrats, 1 Republican
Governorship: Republican
State Senate: Democratic majority (13 – 7)
State House: Democratic majority (28 – 14)

2024 Strategy

1) Scale up youth and BIPOC turnout for Biden and Sen. Rosen.

Nevada is more of a toss-up than ever. Democrats’ margins of victory in Presidential, U.S. Senate, and Gubernatorial races have increasingly narrowed since 2016.
Democrats’ margins with working-class and Latine voters are especially declining. Latine voters in Nevada backed Biden in 2020 by 61-35%, and now comprise one in five voters in the state. In 2024, these voters are demoralized and concerned about inflation, jobs, housing, and healthcare — and Republicans are vying for their votes.
MVP partners are best equipped to meet these voters where they are — and to mobilize them to vote for Democrats. While traditional campaigns often contact these voters only every few years (if at all), our partners have the authentic, year-round relationships to serve as effective trusted messengers, having the human (rather than transactional) conversations that can make the difference between voting or not. For example, our partner UNITE HERE’s canvassers are housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers, and concessions workers who have won middle-class wages and top-notch health insurance through organizing. The union represents 60,000 Nevada workers, and most of the people they canvass have friends or family members in the union.

Collectively, our partners are poised to run their largest, most comprehensive electoral field program ever. Our partners have provided MVP with field plans to attempt 1.2 million voter contacts, engaging voters by door, phone, text, peer-to-peer organizing, digital outreach, and events, and expanding their work beyond Las Vegas and Reno to rural communities around the state.

2) Increase Democratic party-line votes up and down the ballot.

We need to make sure we win up and down the ballot. In 2022, Nevada Democrats had the narrowest ticket split in the country, re-electing US Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto with 48.8% of the vote, while electing Republican Governor Joe Lombardo with 48.9%. This year, we intend to hold together the Democratic coalition up and down the ballot, particularly in nested competitive districts for the state legislature, where we will have the chance to defend the Democratic supermajority in the State Assembly and win a supermajority in the State Senate.
Our partners are proactively addressing this in key “nested districts” (districts with competitive races up and down the ballot) by building name recognition and support for down-ballot candidates, as well as galvanizing voters around state and local issues. In competitive districts, partners like Make the Road Action Nevada will lead with down-ballot candidates in their conversations with voters.

Partner Snapshots

Make the Road Action Nevada

Make the Road Action Nevada is a Latine & immigrant organization that uses direct service to launch powerful year-round organizing, voter engagement, and voter mobilization. Based in Las Vegas, they have expanded to Reno and are also canvassing rural Nevada. They will complete 87,850 voter conversations in 2024, engaging voters by phone, doors, text, and digital, all in Spanish and English.

One APIA Nevada

One APIA runs multilingual voter canvass, phone bank, mail, and digital operations in each election cycle, building on the credibility and large base built by the direct service offerings of its sister 501(c)3 entity, the Asian Community Development Council. In 2024, One APIA will run large-scale voter education and mobilization programs in Las Vegas’ Spring Valley corridor and in Reno. One APIA is the strongest voter engagement operation reaching Nevada’s large and growing AAPI community with culturally competent, multilingual messages.

UNITE HERE Action Fund

UNITE HERE is a national hospitality workers union that runs renowned, scaled-up vote programs. UNITE HERE was key to turning Nevada blue for Obama in 2008 and 2012, Clinton in 2016 (the only battleground Trump lost), and Biden in 2020. In 2022, Sen. Cortez Masto won by 7,928 votes, and the Analyst Institute estimates that UNITE HERE uniquely generated 9,800-15,600 votes in Nevada that year. In 2024 they will knock on 750,000 doors in Las Vegas and Reno, targeting low-propensity voters — working-class and people of color. Their plan includes 14 weeks of direct voter contact, staffed by a group of 184 union-member canvassers that will reach 416 at its peak.

2024 State Budget (Partisan)

Total Estimated Need: $20 million (all local voter organizing)
MVP Baseline and Stretch Goals: $2-$4 million