Nevada politics expert predicts Harris will eke out a win in the state

A Nevada politics expert has predicted that Vice President Harris will narrowly clinch the Silver State in the 2024 presidential election.

Jon Ralston, the CEO and editor of The Nevada Independent, said in a Monday piece for the outlet that the vice president will garner 48.5 percent of the vote and former President Trump will garner 48.2 percent in Tuesday’s election.

"The key to this election has always been which way the non-major-party voters break because they have become the plurality in the state," Ralston said in the piece highlighted by Mediaite. "They are going to make up 30 percent or so of the electorate, and if they swing enough towards Harris, she will win Nevada."

Ralston said that those voters are going to choose Harris, adding that he will “tell you why: Many people assume that with the GOP catching up to the Democrats in voter registration that the automatic voter registration plan pushed by Democrats that auto-registers people as nonpartisans (unless they choose a party) at the DMV had been a failure for the party.”

“But I don’t think so. There are a lot of nonpartisans who are closet Democrats who were purposely registered by Democrat-aligned groups as nonpartisans. The machine knows who they are and will get them to vote,” he continued.

Nevada is an important swing state that Harris or Trump might need to capture to secure the White House in the 2024 election.

Harris is currently behind former Trump in an average of Nevada polls from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ by 1.7 points, with the former president garnering 49.2 percent support to the vice president’s 47.5 percent.

The Silver State’s own Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) said races are “always tight in Nevada” in an interview on Sunday.

"It's a swing state," she told CBS News's Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation." "They're always close. It's always within the margin, and that's why it is important you get out and talk to voters, and you don't take anyone for granted."