New memo from Nevada state democratic party (pdf), published by Jon Ralston fo the Las Vegas Sun shows Democrats now hold an advantage statewide of nearly 35,000 voters over Republicans (compared with with a deficit of 5000 voters at the 2006 election.)

This surge, which has been building since 2004, accelerated greatly in the final months of 2007 and reached the tipping point on caucus day in January (when Democrats gained over 10K new registrations and Republicans lost nearly 5000K).

These figures are highly significant, because dating back to 2000, Democrats have lost three statewide elections (Presidential in 2000 and 2004; Gubernatorial in 2006) by fewer than 25,000 votes.

Moreover, its impact is most evident in the highly competitive 3rd Congressional District, where Republican incumbent and George Bush rubber stamp Jon Porter narrowly held his seat in 2006, winning with 48%, and a margin of fewer than 4000 votes (against a little-known, first-time candidate who entered the race in February.) The district, once solidly republican, now has a 20,000 Democratic voter registration advantage.

Good news for Demcoratic challenger Robert Daskas, who has been campaigning full time since last year.

The new registration figures have also erased Republican margins of several thousand voters in the two most competitive state Senate districts (5 and 6), of which the Democrats need to pick up only one to take a majority.

The party memo concludes that, given this registration advantage, and even assuming "No Party" (independent) registrants vote in the same proportions and with the same breakdown as in 2004, only 27.4% of the new registrants need to turn out and vote Democratic to swing the state to blue in this year's presidential race, and in CD3, only 11% need to turn out and vote Democratic to swing the seat to Daskas.

Here's some ground-eye view of what went on yesterday in Las Vegas, where the Clark County democratic party convention collapsed into chaos and recessed without electing delegates. I laid out the rough outlines here

The convention was one of 17 county conventions held yesterday, at which the roughly 10,000 delegates elected statewide (of which just under 8000 were elected in Clark County) were to elect the delegates for the state convention to be held in May. (Clark County elects just under 2300 state convention delegates, of about 3200 state convention delegates.)

Results from elsewhere in the state favored Obama; in Washoe county, he won 59% of the delegates, a gain of several % points over his January 19th performance. Statewide results (pdf) (minus Clark, of course) gave Obama an advantage of 512-388 in delegates, or 57-43 in percentage .

Some local Clark County color after the jump.

Massive turnout statewide for Democratic county conventions in Nevada today. In all-important Clark County, the county party lost control of the credentialing process resulting in a recess without delegates being elected (and potentially jeopardizing the Nevada delegation to the national convention).

I'll post some MyDD-specific analysis from the floor in a side diary for for those not interested in such inside baseball. For those interested, here's some some detailed local blog coverage and a good story from the Las Vegas Sun. My own suggestions, posted in my own name, on how to fix this mess are on the Nevada progressive blog My Silver State.

The presidential campaign has moved on from NV and I've had a couple of days to restore some order in my house (though the back seat of my car is still full of Edwards signs). I though I'd take the opportunity to thank Jerome and Todd again for inviting me to write some stories about my experiences here and to offer a few thoughts on the fallout here in NV (I'll leave the implications for the national race to others).

My precinct caucus was a pretty exciting affair and actually closely reflected the overall result of the state. We had a few glitches but after that, things settled down and ran very smoothly. It didn't turn out too well for Edwards but Clinton didn't win by as much as she could have.

And despite the presence of "observers" from Culinary, their members in fact a) did not turn up in large numbers (perhaps because many were at work and voted on the strip? don't know) and b) did not all caucus for Obama.

Here's how it went down.

Good morning. NV caucus sites open in a few hours so here's once more a few quick hits from the ground. No predictions, no secrets, consider this a "Johnny Apple mood" piece, MyDD-style.

Sorry to step on Todd's story about the poll but wanted to leave you with an update on how it looks from my little corner of the Nevada campaign.

John Edwards held a townhall-style event at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters local 1977 tonight that felt a lot like a revival meeting, a revival of America. And for those who believe, it felt like a revival of his campaign.

At the end of a day-long blitz of events across the state, including appearances in Elko, Reno and Las Vegas, this event was originally intended to be a q/a with undecided voters. Scheduled at the same time as the very-popular Paradise Democratic Club dinner and held at a location distant from the main freeways, there was concern about whether turnout would be poor and would feed media stories about the campaign being in decline. I have to confess I shared these concerns and accepted to volunteer to help out, in part to help paper the house in case of a thin crowd.

As it turned out, the crowd was packed far beyond capacity, spilling out of the main room into the entrance vestibule and out the door. Newspaper reports put it at 500 but the reporters in the press gallery couldn't see the entrance area or the crowd outside the door.