Nevada: The Game Changing Opportunity of 2018

INVESTING IN NEVADA NOW IS CRITICAL TO VICTORY IN 2018 AND 2020.

Every election cycle, both parties fight hard for Nevada’s six electoral votes. In the last
hundred years, Nevada has voted for the national winner in every presidential election
except two (more than any other state). While President Obama carried the state by a
comfortable 12-point margin in 2008, that margin was cut in half in 2012. In 2016,
Secretary Clinton took Nevada by a margin of only 27,000 votes or 2.4%. U.S. Senator
Catherine Cortez-Masto, the deciding vote to block ACA repeal, won by only 26,000
votes. With the loss of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania for the first time in six
elections, what’s clear is that Nevada is now a must-win state for any Democratic
nominee hoping to win 270 electoral votes.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Nevada by only 27,000 votes

Nevada’s changing demographics, including a growing Latino population, have

strengthened the Democratic base. But winning elections requires that the voting
population be reflective of the population overall. Former Democratic Secretary of
State Ross Miller made significant strides toward making voting easier. However,
assaults on voting rights, like voter ID laws threaten those gains, attacks supported by
Miller’s successor, Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske.

GAME CHANGING OPPORTUNITY IN 2018

In order to keep Nevada in the win column, we need to continue expanding our
electorate with new voters. There are 770,000 Nevada citizens who are eligible to vote
but are not registered. They are disproportionately young, minority and poor.

For example, 58.2% of 18-24 year old citizens were eligible but not registered to vote
in 2016. Hillary Clinton won this age range by an advantage of 29 points (59%-30%). In

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2016, 46% of Hispanics (18% of the electorate), 34.8% of blacks (9% of the electorate),
and 62% of Asians (6% of the electorate) were citizens eligible to vote but not
registered. Clinton won these groups with 60%, 81%, and 62% of the vote
respectively.i

Registering these voters would help secure Democratic victories in Nevada for years to
come.

POTENTIAL NEW VOTER GROUPS SUPPORT FOR CLINTON

African American: HRC 81 – 19 DJT

Hispanic: HRC 60 – 40 DJT
Asian: HRC 62 – DJT 38

Campaigns spend tens of millions of dollars annually and a significant percentage of

time registering voters and talking to them about the process of registration. Voter
registration programs have been expensive and inefficient. Enter automatic voter
registration (AVR). Currently, eligible citizens have the choice to register to vote when
they get their driver’s license through motor-voter provisions. This ‘opt-in’ process
leaves room for many eligible voters to remain unregistered despite this
opportunity. Automatic voter registration changes the process from an opt-in to an
opt-out system. With automatic voter registration, every eligible voter will be
automatically registered when they get a driver’s license or state ID, unless they opt-
out.

The Brennan Center recently released research studying the effects of AVR in Oregon
in 2016, its first full year of implementation. They found that AVR not only increased
turnout, but diversified the electorate. Demos estimates that AVR accounted for 38% of
all newly registered voters in 2016.ii The percentage of African American, Latino and
Asian voters among AVR registered voters all increased in relation to the percentage of
these voters who were not registered through AVR, including more than doubling the
percentage of voters in the two latter groups. Similarly, Vermont saw a 62% increase in
registration under AVR in the first 6 months of 2017 from the same 6-month period the
year before in a Presidential year.iii

This common sense idea is popular in Nevada. Recent polling puts support for AVR in
the state at 66%, including majority support from Democrats, Independents and

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Republicans. Even after simulated debate, AVR maintains majority support in the
state.iv

In 2016, iVote made a critical investment in gathering more than double the required
signatures to put automatic voter registration on the 2018 ballot. If iVote’s AVR ballot
initiative passes, we could automatically register each of the nearly 800,000 currently
eligible but unregistered Nevada citizens as they receive or renew a driver’s license.
Not only will every currently eligible voter be registered to vote, but every future Silver
State voter—every 18-year-old, every new citizen, every college student moving to the
state—will automatically be registered forever. That’s a game changer.

HOW WE GET IT DONE

iVote will run a campaign in support of the AVR ballot initiative with the following
elements:

Public Opinion Research

Baseline poll - $35,000
Qualitative array - $25,000
Tracking polls - $30,000

Data and Targeting

Voter file and modeling - $100,000

Digital Ads
Targeted Digital Ads (Search and Social) - $1,250,000

Radio
Spanish Language TV over 3 weeks - $750,000
Spanish Language Radio over 3 weeks - $100,000

Television
3 spots Broadcast over 6 weeks + Cable over 4.5 weeks - $4,670,000

Mail
Targeted bumper three-piece mail program: $250,000

TOTAL GAME CHANGING BUDGET: $7,210,000

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 THE IVOTE TEAM
The Board of Directors includes campaign and policy veterans with leadership
experience over the past 5 presidential campaigns: Jeremy Bird, Michael Blake,
Valeisha Butterfield-Jones, Rachael Cobb, Pete Giangreco, Jason Kander, Ellen Kurz,
Frank Smith and Doug Sosnik. Advisors include Rebecca Lambe, Ross Miller, Mark
Ritchie, Hari Sevugan, and Nina Turner.

                                                                                                           
i
CNN exit polls, November 8, 2016
ii
Demos, July 26, 2017
iii
Sec. of State Condos’s press release, August 17, 2017
iv
GSG poll conducted January 2017
 

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