Nevada Democrats maintain big registration margin

Nevada's latest voter registration figures show a drop of nearly 120,000 voters, to just over 1.3 million, since the November 2008 elections - with Democrats maintaining their solid advantage over Republicans.

According to the May registration figures provided by Secretary of State Ross Miller's office, the Democrats' registration edge over Republicans is 109,753. That's down slightly from an advantage of 111,505 in November.

The latest numbers show 578,863 Democrats are registered to vote in Nevada. They account for 44 percent of the state's active and inactive voters.

There are 469,110 Republicans registered to vote in the state, accounting for 35 percent of all Nevada voters. The remaining 21 percent of registered voters are nonpartisans and minor-party members.

The percentages mark a 1-point gain for Democrats and a 1-point decline for Republicans since November, when a record-high total of more than 1.4 million Nevadans registered. About 80 percent made it to the polls - the highest turnout since 1988.

In the November elections, Democrat Barack Obama carried Nevada by 12 percentage points in his successful bid for the presidency, and Nevada Democrats picked up a U.S. House seat, won control of the state Senate and gained a veto-proof majority in the Assembly.

Voter registration typically stays low between elections but is expected to pick up in 2010, when Nevada will have a high-profile race for governor. Also, there will be races for other constitutional offices, such as attorney general, treasurer, controller, lieutenant governor and secretary of state.

A breakdown of the latest registration totals shows Democrats outnumbering Republicans in just three of Nevada's 17 counties - but those three counties include Clark and Washoe, the state's population centers which account for 87 percent of all voters.

Clark County, encompassing Las Vegas, accounts for 913,571 of the voters. That includes 428,749 Democrats and 291,927 Republicans.

In Washoe County, which takes in Reno, there are 236,774 registered voters, including 94,021 Democrats and 92,458 Republicans.

Democrats also outnumber Republicans in western Nevada's Mineral County, which includes Hawthorne and has 3,466 total registered voters.