Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has enjoyed a steady lead over President Trump in Nevada, but uncertainty in the state is leading his campaign to spend millions of dollars in advertising.
On Friday, the former vice president will make his first trip to the state since the height of the Democratic primary in February. Notably, his vice presidential pick, California Sen. Kamala Harris, made a stop there earlier this month, her first trip of the campaign.
The moves from the Biden campaign remain peculiar, considering he has enjoyed a steady polling advantage over the president for months. A RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys has Biden at a 6-point lead over Trump.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Wednesday found that Biden leads Trump in Nevada by 6 points among likely voters, with 48%. Six percent of voters in Nevada remain undecided. The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
In 2016, Trump lost the state by just under 2.5 points. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won with just 47.92% of the vote, one of the lowest shares of votes for any Democrat to win Nevada in recent political history.
That margin in 2016 means the Biden campaign remains concerned about its chances there in November. During the Democratic primary, Biden hardly campaigned in the state and practically ceded the caucus to rival Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In that contest, Sanders won 40.5% of the vote while Biden earned 18.9%, a similar margin to Biden’s massive win in the South Carolina primary the following week.
The key to Democratic victories in the state, which have happened in every presidential race since 2008, is their aggressive voter registration efforts. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the most powerful politician to come out of Nevada in generations, helped expand the Democratic turnout effort in Las Vegas and Reno.
But the coronavirus pandemic has severely hampered the traditional door-knocking that has long been key to the Nevada Democratic Party’s strategy. Last month, the Cook Political Report moved Nevada from “Likely Democrat” to “Lean Democrat,” signaling the race has shifted slightly in Trump’s favor.
The GOP’s voter registration in the state has remained aggressive, with officials boasting about reaching thousands of new voters and 2.5 million voter contacts in the last year. The president has made several trips to the state, flouting guidelines from health experts that caution against large gatherings.
Democrats maintain a hefty edge over Republicans in terms of voter registration, with 90,000, but Republicans point to the inordinate amount of independent voters in the state as evidence that the state remains up for grabs. Nearly 400,000 Nevada voters are currently registered as nonpartisan and have been the focus of the Trump campaign’s outreach efforts in addition to getting his base to turn out.
To make up for lost ground, the Biden campaign and its supportive super PACs are investing millions in the state on advertising. Since March, they have spent nearly $10 million on television commercials, about twice as much as Trump and his allies. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Biden campaign has spent five times as much money on advertising in Nevada as Trump since Labor Day.
