An Upset Deep in the Heart of Nowhere?

Poor Jill Derby. She is running hard in a competitive race which has gotten little national notice, and in turn even less support from her party (not to mention not a single mention in T2L's vaunting rankings either). Derby, who is running for Congress in a very conservative district after falling short in 2006, has managed to keep it fairly close this year, but she has waited and waited for the national Democratic Party to pitch in while it has helped just about every other Democrat in a tight contest except her. Yet, all of that may be changing today on the heels of a poll and some other information very favorable to her chances.

Derby is running the enormous Second District in Nevada. The district takes up just about every inch of the state, excluding Las Vegas, its suburbs, and most of Clark County in the southern tip. Therefore, its population center is in Washoe County and Reno, and well as in Carson City, with a smattering of people in eastern Elko County and in western Douglas County. Unlike the southern part of the state, the district is very conservative, and libertarian-leaning. Its PVI is R+8, and President Bush won here 57-41 in 2006. Derby ran two years ago with little support, falling to now-freshman Rep. Dean Heller by 50-45.

Derby announced for a rematch, and while she has fundraised okay, she has been far short of Heller on the financial front. Because the polling has not been great, the DCCC has not really waded into the rural district. Really, there has been very little polling here, with most of it coming from R2K.

47-42 Heller (R2K, 8/18-8/20)
48-41 Heller (R2K, 10/3-10/5)

That second poll was a dagger. It came out just as the DCCC was beginning to harden many of its spending plans, and I suspect that it impacted its decision of whether or not to dedicate resources here. (Mason-Dixon came out with a poll 10/10 showing Heller up 51-38; and while it seemed suspect and its sample too small, I have to believe it influenced the DCCC too). This was all a killer, and since then, NV-02 has been completely off the national radar.

However, today R2K came out with a new result that may breath new life into the distirct which falls in the heart of Desert and Nowhere, U.S.A.

Dean Heller 47
Jill Derby 44

If true, this shows a good deal of tightening in the race less than one week out. With Heller unable to close the deal and get to 50 percent, the DCCC today apparently committed to spending some resources in the race.

(I must acknowledge, however, that the poll has apparently under-sampled voters in the rural counties in the district, while slightly over-sampling the Clark County portion of the district and heavily over-sampling the Washoe part. Because the rural counties are very conservative, this under-sampling would like undercut Heller's support.)

It gets better for the Democrat, courtesy of some early voting numbers. First, as we have discussed, early voting has exploded in Washoe County, Nevada's second biggest county, seemingly to the benefit of Democrats like Barack Obama and Jill Derby. As of Wednesday, 68,258 people voted early, with the following party break-down:

Democrat: 48.9 percent
Republican: 34.3 percent
Unaffiliated/Other: 16.8 percent

In a county that regularly votes Republican, this a big turnaround. And, incidentally, polling of these voters shows Obama leading 50-40, in a county Republicans routinely carry en route to victory statewide.

Going further, an article Thursday in the Las Vegas Sun notes the following statistic as of Wednesday night:

The 2nd Congressional District has a race between incumbent Republican Dean Heller and Democrat Jill Derby. So far, 6,446 Democrats, 4,410 Republican and 2,493 voters with no party have cast ballots. The mailed votes came from 1,223 Republicans, 576 Democrats and 370 non-affiliated voters.

Another piece in Wednesday's Las Vegas Review-Journal backs up the notion that this voting disparity favors Derby:

Exit polling of early voters in Nevada's 2nd Congressional District finds Democrat Jill Derby building a sizable lead over the incumbent Republican congressman she hopes to unseat, Rep. Dean Heller.

Of those who had voted through Sunday in the rural and Northern Nevada district, 55 percent favored Derby versus 44 percent for Heller, according to the automated survey of 1,132 respondents conducted by Las Vegas-based DNA Communications Consulting Group [...]

Statistics kept by the secretary of state's office show that early voting turnout in Washoe County has been high and heavily Democratic. Partisan statistics for the 15 rural counties aren't available, but they tend to be heavily Republican.

While this is only an exit poll, together the two articles provide strong pieces of evidence that Derby is much-bettered positioned that she was in 2006 and many observers felt she would be this year in her Republican district. While this data does not include those heavy-GOP rural counties we mentioned, if Derby can run up clear wins in Washoe County, she would be in her best position possible to oust Heller. She really can't win without taking this voter-rich part of the Second District.

Finally, let's look at one last series of numbers, namely registration statistics for the Second District. Specifically, I want to note how this district has been changing in the last years.

November 2006: GOP held a 47,718 vote edge over Dems.
August 2008: GOP +29,405
October 2008: GOP +22,038

What does this spell? Simply that while the district is still clearly Republican, it is moving slowly but surely to the center. In the span of two years, the GOP's registration advantage was cut in half, courtesy of several factors including robust efforts by the Obama campaign, not to mention movement into northern Nevada by people out of southern California. Not to mention that John Kerry bettered Al Gore's number here (from 37 to 41 percent), while President Bush remained at 57 percent in both election. Very small, but nonetheless steady movement in the direction of Democrats.

These are numbers that will one day catch up to Dean Heller, whether this year or sometime in the future. It does not help the GOP incumbent that Obama is posting very strong numbers statewide, potential victory margins that may be wide enough to span the entire state, even the most conservatives parts which fall within the Second District. Jill Derby still faces an uphill climb, and honestly, I do not think she will win in the end. But for some reason I find this sprawling district really interesting, and I figure the NV-02 race deserves more attention for its potential to be close. We'll know soon enough.