Zach Moyle

LAS VEGAS - For the first time since December, Nevada Republicans gained ground on Democrats in statewide voter registration in May, according to the secretary of state's office.

Democrats, aided by active voter registration drives by the Democratic presidential campaigns and a caucus rule that allowed unregistered voters to register and participate the day of the Jan. 19 caucuses secured an advantage over Republicans of more than 50,000 voters in the state from fewer than 5,000 last year.

That advantage shrank by fewer than 1,000 voters last month.

LAS VEGAS-With the announcement last week by the Nevada Republican Party that it has chosen Jul. 26 to reconvene its first, unsuccessful convention, controversies remain for Ron Paul supporters and previously voted-on delegates that could lead all the way to the Republican National Convention in September.

Supporters of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) hope to host a form of make-up convention on Jun. 28 and believe that if they achieve a quorum of the previous Apr. 26 convention attendees they may be able to elect a slate of delegates that could be seated at the national convention. 

The effort, which is thus far being bankrolled by Reno dentist and Paul supporter Dr. Wayne Terhune, is sanctioned by the Ron Paul campaign and is being organized largely over Web sites like Meetup and Digg.com.

In order for their Jun. 28 date to have any chance of electing delegates that will actually be seated, however, Paul supporters will have to overcome enormous strategic and legal hurdles that will test the burgeoning power of netroots-fueled movements like Paul's.

LAS VEGAS-New voter registration numbers, released yesterday by the secretary of state's office, show that state Democrats have improved on the advantages they've gained in the last several months and are now in an even stronger position to pick up seats on the assembly, state senate and congressional levels.

Democrats, who had trailed Republicans in overall voter registration as recently as March of 2007, now have 441,676 active registered voters in Nevada as compared to 396,489 Republicans. Although both parties picked up voters, the Democratic advantage has swelled to 45,187 registrations, up from slightly more than 40,000 just a month ago.

"This is just an incredible shift in voter registration," said Kirsten Searer, deputy executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party, today. "The interesting thing about this is, at this point this isn't just caucus returns. For a long time, we were getting a boost because county registrars were going through the voter registration forms from the caucus. We're beyond that and we're still seeing a huge uptick in voter registration."

Las Vegas, NV:  Today, on the fifth anniversary of our efforts to overthrow the brutal, tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, as part of our ongoing War on Terror, Nevada Republican Party Chairman Sue Lowden issued the following statement:

Republican Congressman Dean HellerLas Vegas- Although the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries are still far from over, results from those races may be pointing to a tougher-than-expected reelection campaign for Congressman Dean Heller (R-NV) in the largely rural 2nd Congressional District.

The trouble for Heller, several observers believe, would come from the combination of a win in the Democratic primary for Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and a lingering disaffection among Nevada Republicans over the loss of former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney in the GOP primaries.

“In Congressional District 2, most of the counties went to Barack Obama [in the Jan. 19 Democratic caucuses],” said Steve Platt, chairman of the Carson City Democratic Party.  “He was able to pull independents and Republicans in a pretty conservative congressional district to his side.”