Scenes from the Campaign Trail in Nevada

Today is the last day of early voting in Nevada. After today, the only day left for voting will be Tuesday. Yet while we have one more day of early voting to occur, we now have a much better sense of where things stand in this final stretch.

Just this morning, Jon Ralston posted this.

Democrats gained about 6,000 voters on the penultimate day of early voting in Clark County while Republicans won Thursday in Washoe County by about 200 votes.

It appears the Democrats, who now lead in Clark by 60,000 voters, will have somewhere in the neighborhood of about a 40,000-voter lead --perhaps slightly more -- in Nevada going into Election Day. If partsian voting patterns are predictable and if independents are, as credible polls show, relatively close, the GOP will need a huge turnout Tuesday for Mitt Romney to have any chance. And it also means that U.S. Senate race could be a nail-biter.

Turnout will be greater than what it was four years ago. In 2008, 392,427 people voted early; this year, with one day left, it's at 388,456.

Here are the totals for Clark, including mail ballots:

Democrats -- 205,878, or 47.6 percent

Republicans -- 144,745, or 33.5 percent

Others -- 81,345, or 18.9 percent

So how did this happen? Let me show you.







There has been a whole lot of canvassing. And we've especially been seeing plenty of canvassing in the Southwest part of the Las Vegas Valley. There are many Democratic voters here. But since there are so many new neighborhoods yet so few early voting sites, Nevada State Democratic Party organizers and volunteers have been working at a furious pace to turn out Democrats to vote early for President Obama, Shelley Berkley, John Oceguera, and the local candidates.

But of course, this hasn't been all. There's also been a large contingent of volunteers coming into the office to do GOTV ("get out the vote") phone calls to reach people who possibly couldn't be reached by the canvassers. There have even been a few very special guests dropping by this week to call with the local volunteers.





Yep, both Shelley Berkley and John Oceguera stopped by Nevada Democrats' NV-03 field office in Henderson to thank volunteers. Berkley brought pizza to make sure everyone was well fueled. And Oceguera hit the phones to personally call voters along with the volunteers.

And that's not all. Yesterday, another special guest came to Southern Nevada to pump up Democrats and encourage (even more of) them to vote. Oh, and it just so happened he met us at an athletic field right next to an early voting site.







And here's an excerpt of President Obama's speech at CSN Cheyenne.



So it's been quite an exciting week. And with early voting wrapping up tonight, there's even more work to do with the final round of GOTV for Tuesday. But so far, it looks like Nevada Democrats are prepared for the home stretch. They opened well, but they also have to close well. And that starts today.