'Very close': Nevada expert reveals which presidential candidate he predicts will win crucial battleground

A respected election expert in Nevada has released his final analysis for the presidential race in the Silver State and predicted that Vice President Kamala Harris will carry the state by a razor-thin margin over former President Donald Trump.

Jon Ralston, editor and CEO of The Nevada Independent, wrote in a blog post on Monday that he predicts the crucial swing state of Nevada by a margin of 48.5% to 48.2%.

"It’s a simple question: Can the Democrats catch up?" Ralston asked, referencing the early voting lead that Republicans have surprisingly amassed in the state along with significantly cutting down the voter registration lead Democrats usually enjoy.

"It’s really a coin flip, and I know people on both sides who have analyzed the data who can’t decide. I have gone back and forth in my own head for days, my eyes glazing over with numbers and models and extrapolations. 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. They are going to make up 30 percent or so of the electorate and if they swing enough towards Harris, she will win Nevada. I think they will, and I’ll tell you why."

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Ralston explained that he believes many Harris voters who are registered as "nonpartisan" will get out and vote as part of the "Reid Machine" put in place by the late Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015, to help pool resources to maximize support for candidates up and down the ballot. 

"The machine knows who they are and will get them to vote. It will be just enough to overcome the Republican lead – along with women motivated by abortion and crossover votes that issue also will cause."

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Ralson wrote that his previous analysis "concludes Trump probably has a 30,000 raw vote lead right now," but he believes there are "a lot of Clark County mail ballots to be counted that favor Democrats" and suggested early GOP turnout is cannibalizing part of its Election Day vote.

Ralston added, "I know some may think this reflects my well-known disdain for Trump, heart over data. But that is not so. I have often predicted against my own preferences; history does not lie. I just have a feeling she will catch up here, but I also believe – and please remember this – it will not be clear who won on Election Night here, so block out the nattering nabobs of election denialism. It’s going to be very, very close."

A Trump campaign official told Fox News Digital that Ralston's "prediction" is "all wishcasting and not based on data."

"The MSNBC contributor hates Trump and admitted as such in his prediction. Republicans are turning out and Democrats aren't in Nevada. The math is the math."

Ralston, who said he has "never missed a Nevada presidential call," also predicted that incumbent Dem. Sen. Jacky Rosen would win re-election in Nevada and that Democrats down the ticket would perform well. He did admit he has "botched races down-ballot."

Nevada and its six electoral votes are expected to play a critical role in the presidential election in a state where the Real Clear Politics average of polls shows Trump with a one-point lead.

President Biden won Nevada by roughly 34,000 votes in 2020 and Nevada has voted for every Democrat who has run for president since 1992, except the two elections with President George W. Bush on the ballot. However, the average margin across those eight elections is just 4.1 points.