AARP poll results: Top Nevada election races are completely up for grabs
Mark Robison
Reno Gazette Journal
Nevada’s governor and U.S. Senate seats could easily go Republican or Democrat this November.
“Nevada is a completely up-for-grabs state,” said Bob Ward, one of the pollsters behind new polling data released Thursday by AARP. In the governor’s race between incumbent Democrat Steve Sisolak and his Republican challenger Joe Lombardo, Sisolak has a 3-point advantage in the AARP poll – 41 to 38% – although that’s within the 4.4 percentage point margin of error.
Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto also has a slight lead over Republican Adam Laxalt in the U.S. Senate race, 44 to 40%.
Those slight leads for the Democratic candidates were similar to results from a recent Reno Gazette Journal/Suffolk University poll that had Cortez Masto up by 7 points and Sisolak up by 3. “Both of them are incredibly close and are going to be among the most competitive races in the country this year,” Ward said during a Zoom meeting with media outlets.
Drilling down into specific types of voters, the AARP data reveals tidbits about where the candidates’ strengths lie.
Democrats support Sisolak more than Republicans support Lombardo – 80% of Democrats say they are likely to vote for Sisolak while 74% of Republicans say they’ll vote for Lombardo.
This could be related to Lombardo’s primary opponent Joey Gilbert; the Reno attorney claims he won in a landslide due to a mysterious algorithm and still disputes the results despite a district court judge’s finding there was a “clear absence” of “competent evidence” to support the claim.
Sisolak has strong advantages over Lombardo among women (14 points higher), those with a college degree (18 points) and Hispanics (14 points).
Lombardo is much stronger with men (a 10-point advantage over Sisolak).
While both candidates are viewed negatively overall, one striking difference is with independents. Nonpartisan voters only dislike Lombardo a little – 39% have a favorable view while 44 have an unfavorable view, a difference of negative 5 points. For Sisolak, among independents, it’s negative 22 points.
This is important because independent voters could swing the election. AARP asked respondents which candidates they support in different ways. One was with the complete ballot featuring Gov. Sisolak and Sheriff Lombardo as well as minor party candidates and the “none of the above” option. People were also asked how they would vote with only two choices: Sisolak and Lombardo.
With the full ballot, Sisolak is ahead by 3 points. Head to head, Lombardo is ahead by 2.
This stems from 10% of voters picking either a minority candidate (4% pick Edward Bridges and 3% choose Brandon Davis) or “none of the above” (3%). When those voters are forced to pick one of the main candidates, they lean toward Lombardo.
Another 10% of voters are still undecided.
