Nevada has fewer registered Democrats today than in 2016. That’s one reason Nevada could be a red state within a decade.   Nevada Republicans currently have a voter registration edge of more than 7,000 out of 2 million registered voters. That may not sound like much, but it’s their largest voter registration lead since 2006. Nevada has around 571,000 registered Republicans and a bit under 564,000 Democrats.  This is a dramatic reversal. In the 2016 general election, Democrats had a voter registration advantage of nearly 89,000. Hillary Clinton won the state by around 27,000 votes. In 2020, Democrats had a similarly sized edge. Former President Joe Biden won the state by under 34,000 votes.   But the Biden presidency turned into a recruiting boon for Nevada Republicans. By November 2022, Democrats’ voter registration edge had fallen to around 52,000. Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, defeated the Democratic incumbent, former Gov. Steve Sisolak, by less than 16,000 votes.  By November 2024, Democrats’ voter registration edge in Nevada had dropped to under 10,000. President Donald Trump won the state by 46,000 votes, a victory of 3 percentage points.  One of the biggest reasons for this is how Trump—aided by Biden’s inflation-producing policies—revamped the Republican coalition. Trump attracted more minority and younger voters, while college-educated voters moved left. Nevada might be the state where that trade is the most advantageous. Thirty percent of Nevadans are Hispanic, and racial minorities comprise the majority of the state’s population. Compared with other states, Nevada has relatively few college graduates.   It’s unclear whether this coalition will hold together or show up in the midterms. College graduates tend to be more consistent voters.   Nevada Republicans received an unwitting assist from leftist donors, too. In 2018, Nevada voters approved an automatic voter registration initiative. Leftist groups donated more than $9 million to promote the measure. The theory was that automatically registering people at the DMV would ensure a steady stream of new Democrat voters.   It didn’t happen. In 2018, there were almost 600,000 registered Democrats, which gave them a 4.8 percentage point advantage. Today, there are around 564,000 Democrats and Republicans have a 0.35 percentage point edge.   Before 2018, Nevada Democrats significantly outperformed Republicans in registering voters. The Reid machine provided money and organization that Republicans couldn’t match. But DMV registration leveled the playing field. Plus, most people at the DMV aren’t thinking about voting. Many get registered as nonpartisan by default. This makes it harder for Democrats to identify which voters to turn out.   This shift has moved Nevada from a lean blue state to a pure toss-up. Will the trend continue?  Here are two reasons it might. The first is Californians. Yes, you read that correctly. In 2024, around 40% of those moving to Nevada came from the Golden State. But those departing Californians are disproportionately Republican. Paradoxically, former Californians may keep Nevada from copying California’s terrible policies.  The other is Turning Point Action, setting up shop in Nevada. For decades, the Right hasn’t had a counter to the turnout machine of Culinary Local 226. If donors buy into the long-term vision, Turning Point’s efforts could turn those low-propensity Republican voters into Republican votes.   The stakes are high. If this trend continues, Republicans could flip Nevada’s two Democrat-held U.S. Senate seats in 2028 and 2030. After the census shakes up the Electoral College, Nevada’s results could determine who wins the presidency in 2032.   Events are unpredictable, and Democrats are pumping money into voter registration. That should help them.   But a decade ago, Nevada looked like it would soon be a permanently blue state. It has swung dramatically to the right, and there are reasons to believe that trend will continue.  COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. 

St. Mark’s feast day, celebrated on April 25 each year, provides an opportunity to reflect on the radical message of the Christian Gospel. Tradition holds that Mark, the author of one of the four Gospels, was a close friend and follower of St. Peter. It is traditionally believed that Mark’s account of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is deeply informed by St. Peter’s own direct experience of events. Mark’s Gospel shares the Christian faith in the terse and approachable style of a simple fisherman called by Jesus to do great things. The Christian faith of the Gospels can be summarized through the kerygma, an ancient Greek term meaning proclamation or message, which in the Christian context refers to the central message of the faith. This was the message that Christ’s followers spread across the known world following his resurrection and ascension into heaven. This message changed the world, and it can be summarized in five points. First, God is real, and He created mankind for a purpose, namely, to love. Second, human beings rejected God and chose sin. Third, God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to correct mankind’s relationship with Him and reveal His heart. Fourth, each person can know Jesus as a real living person through the Church, the sacraments, and the Bible. Fifth, all followers of Christ are called to spread the faith to all who will listen so that everyone can hear and know Jesus for eternity. The Apostles spent their lives preaching the kerygma to build up the Kingdom of God. The kerygma is a summary of the entire Bible. Scripture reveals who God is and who we are. It shows us that our God is a relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It teaches that this Triune God created human beings to enter into this divine relationship, even though we so often reject Him and choose our selfish ways over following Him. Despite man’s repeated rejection of God’s pursuit, He sent His Son into time so that He could definitively bring about salvation. Even though we did not deserve it, He suffered in our place, conquered death, and rose from the dead. As a result of Jesus’ actions, we can live beyond the powers of sin and are called to live with God forever in heaven. This is the greatest love story ever told, and entering into this reality is the fulfillment of every human desire. The question is this: how do we enter into it? On the celebration of the feast of St. Mark, we are reminded that the Bible is a crucial entry point to knowing God and becoming who we are made to be. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The Church forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. For we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles.”  Reading the Bible is not simply a matter of gaining knowledge as if from a technical manual. Praying with the Bible is a chance to encounter the living God. Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired. God is the author, and men like St. Mark were the pens. God uses the authors, with all of the details of their lives, as vehicles to bring about His presence and truth. Since these words have their origin in God, they give us access to Him today. This is why the saints throughout history and countless Christians today pray the Bible daily. Slowly digesting a passage each day allows us to encounter God and be drawn into the purpose of our existence: communion with Him. This practice is known as lectio divina or “holy reading.” You can select a passage, preferably beginning with one of the four Gospels (St. Mark’s is the shortest), and read the passage slowly. You can read it once and sit quietly for a minute or two. Then you read it two more times with a pause in between while centering on a line or phrase that stands out to you. Many Christians choose to use a notebook to record phrases that stand out to them and then write down reflections. The repetitive nature of choosing a phrase or word allows one to be led into silent prayer and experience the presence of God. That is the true impact of Scripture. It facilitates a deep encounter with the living God and draws us into the reason for our existence: being united with the One who made us for Himself. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

There are at least 76,000 supermarkets in the United States. Most of us probably have a dozen within 10 miles of home. Nevertheless, leftists are constantly trying to convince us that we need government-run grocery stores. The latest person is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has promised to open five city-run markets to combat “out of control” prices by getting rid of the “profit motive,” passing on the savings to consumers. The first glaring problem with Mamdani’s plan is that the “profit motive” is the best device to create savings. Mamdani says he looks “forward to the competition” from the private sector, and “may the most affordable grocery store win.” It’s not really “competition” when a government official untethered from the “profit motive” can use endless taxpayer subsidies to keep his business afloat. The Mamdani Mart in Harlem, for instance, will be built on land already owned by the city, and it’s still going to cost $30 million according to the mayor, if government estimates are right, a rarity. In the real world, these exorbitant costs would be passed on to consumers. In the Mamdani world, the cost is tacked on to an already $5.4 billion budget deficit. To put the cost into context, a new Aldi costs around $1.5 million to $3 million on average to construct, not including the cost of the land. Other chains might cost around $3 million to $5 million. Aldi keeps costs as low as possible because they are governed by the profit motive. An Aldi can be built as quickly as six weeks. Mamdani’s supermarket won’t be open until 2029. Maybe. New York City could hand over $30 million to any major chain, and it would get at least three self-sustaining retail stores up and running within a year. Then again, Democrats could just stop placating their corrupt union donors by blocking Walmart from opening stores in the city; it would cost nothing. When the state-run KC Sun Fresh supermarket opened in Kansas City, it was supposed to help alleviate the “food deserts.” At first, it was run by private grocers. But without the profit motive, they abandoned the project. By 2024, the supermarket was losing nearly $1 million a year, averaging around 4,000 shoppers, down from 14,000. Those who showed up were confronted with empty shelves, unchecked shoplifting, and barely any healthy produce. It closed in 2025. And when political considerations are your concern rather than profit motives, you end up building retail establishments that aren’t needed. Within a mile of the site of Mamdani’s new $30 million tax-funded supermarket in Harlem, there are, according to Google Maps, at least a dozen grocers, everything from an Aldi to a Whole Foods. It’s less than a nine-minute walk to a big supermarket from the proposed site and a three-minute walk to a fresh produce market. New Yorkers should demand their government work with the efficiency of a supermarket, not the other way around. If Mamdani wants more supermarkets in Harlem, he should work to cut the bureaucratic hell that potential business owners are forced to traverse to open a store. New York City is already home to one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country, yet Mamdani supports an effort to significantly increase them. During the Cold War, the American supermarket was often held up as the model of prosperity. When the Soviet Union was petering out in 1989, Boris Yeltsin toured a Randalls in Houston, resulting in the famous pictures of the wide-eyed future Russian president perusing the wide variety of food available to average people living under capitalism. Yeltsin said that “there would be a revolution” in the Soviet Union if people saw the availability. “Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice,” he said. “Not even Mr. Gorbachev.” Today, grocery chains are often depicted as predatory and monopolistic endeavors by Marxists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because it’s easy to rile up consumers who are agitated by inflation. Supermarkets have some of the lowest profit margins of any business in the country, usually around 1% to 3%. Successful chains stay competitive by adapting quickly, leaning on high-volume, high-turnover sales, cost-cutting and intricate supply chains. Government isn’t exactly nimble. There’s no doubt that living in dense urban areas is expensive. Many in the media depict Mamdani’s plan as a harmless effort to help poor people deal with the vagaries and inequities of capitalism with a few affordable grocery stores. Whatever, the government subsidies will become more expensive, crowding out value-producing “competitors.” It’s a shame that American leftists have to relearn the most basic and obvious lessons of history and economics.COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson.  Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.  Sami Winc: You know, you listen to the news accounts of the U.S. military maintaining control of the Persian Gulf. And you know, so I say, for example, they’ve stopped ships and a cargo ship with a bunch of Chinese missiles, et cetera. And then you hear the Left saying, oh, they’re committing war crimes by controlling this gulf. But in the undercurrent of all of that news coverage is that that’s what the Iranians were doing, even worse for years and years. And they weren’t just stopping something to stop military arms. They were hijacking and stealing. Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah. They took British prisoners. They took hostages. Whenever they had a Democratic president, Obama or Biden, they were emboldened. It’s really disgusting to hear Ro Khanna this Democratic congressman saying that Obama was a great statesman, and they didn’t do—under Obama, they lifted sanctions, and that was where the first initial cash infusions came in. So they got all of this money. They were so embarrassed of what they were doing, they had to ship $400 million dollars, at night, in frozen assets. They unfroze their assets, then the Iran deal did not stop them from getting a bomb. It just delayed the trajectory. So Trump came in in 2017 and stopped it. Well, they didn’t even try to cheat because they thought he was crazy. After he killed Soleimani and Baghdadi and ISIS, Biden came in. The first thing he did is he removed the terrorist designation of the Houthis. He separated us from Israel. Hamas got that message. He did a deal with natural gas in Lebanon, and he empowered Hezbollah. And then with the Iranians, begged them to get back in the deal. When they didn’t do it, he rewarded their negativity by lifting sanctions, and that’s where that period of 21 to 24 is when they went up to 60% enrichment. So we had this congressman there who just gets on Maria Bartiromo, and he just starts lying. And he’s been really one of the more unfortunate spokesmen because, unlike a Chris Murphy or Tim Walz who are buffoons, he always starts this moral argument. Another thing I think everybody’s getting sick of is they say, this is fascism. Trump is a fascist. This is untoward—not that fascism is coming—they don’t define their terms. What do you mean by fascism? Did he cancel an election? No. Did he try to gerrymander? Well, not as well as the Democrats were doing. Did he use the government to go after his presidential rival? So is he going to have Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom in five separate civil or criminal trials like Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Jack Smith? Going to do that? E. Jean Carroll? Maybe he’s going to try to get him off the ballot. Twenty-five red states, are they trying to get a Democratic leading candidate off the ballot? Did he raid Kamala Harris’ house? Did he raid Joe Biden’s house? They hadn’t done any of that. Did the attorney general say, I’m going to put Steve Bannon, I’m going to put Peter Navarro in jail for not honoring a congressional subpoena, but I’m Merrick Garland, I’m not going to honor it? He hasn’t done any of that. So they don’t define their terms because if you look at what they did during the Trump years—and I haven’t gotten into the two impeachments, which we’re learning now that Michael Atkinson, the inspector general, he, hand in glove with Adam Schiff and Eric Ciaramella and Vindman allowed that first impeachment to proceed. And remember, in the first impeachment, this is very important, there were 15 or 16 people in the National Security Council in that room, and they listened to that phone call with Zelensky. It had no problem whatsoever. Some of them were holdover Obama people. Only Vindman did. And Vindman didn’t even have the courage to become a whistleblower, so he called his pal Ciaramella. And then, based on hearsay. This is what I heard. And then Ciaramella was basically saying, I heard what he heard. And then he disguised his name and played the wounded fawn, so you couldn’t even talk about him. And then he lied, as did Vindman, when they went in to Adam Schiff and cooked up the whole process. And then each of those three people lied and said they had never colluded. The inspector general knew they did, and he did nothing and allowed it to go on. And that was the second—that was the first impeachment, and that followed the day after the Mueller collusion collapsed. As soon as that collapsed, they said, take a deep breath. Now we go into impeachment. And they ate up the entire 2018 and ’19 presidential term of Donald Trump. So this idea that Trump is a fascist and the war’s fascistic—it’s on the side of people who want to be free. But more importantly, that’s a subtext. The main thing is these people have been killing us for 47 years, blowing up the embassies, barracks, shooting diplomats, trying to kill the president, trying to kill the secretary of state. They’re a horrific regime. They’ve killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. They’re horrible. And they hijacked the Iranian illustrious Persian tradition. They’re an aberration, and they have no popular support. Everybody hates them. The Gulf hates them. Israel hates them. The Arabs hate them. The Europeans are too timid to express their hatred, but they are terrified of them and hate them. The Chinese don’t even like them. The Chinese are one of the greatest Islamic oppressors in the world. They have a million Muslims in camps, the Uyghurs. The Russians do not like Muslims. They leveled Grozny in the third Chechen war and killed 100,000 people, Muslim. So their alliance with Iran is Iran is a useful tool. A useful idiot. They say, this is what we want you to do. We want you to sell us sanctioned oil, we’ll buy it off the books. You got to give us a discount, and then we’ll give you credit for our weapons. And then when we get those weapons, try to destroy Israel and any pro-Western country. And intimidate the Gulf states. That’s what their strategy was. Sami Winc: So, Victor, I was wondering about this. So as we move forward, if we think about what Donald Trump needs to do, I think that warning the Iranians that they’re going to hit the bridges and the power plants, et cetera, just gets them out to, as you said, they don’t have any concern for people. And so they’ll just bring their women and children out to protect these things. My thought is— Victor Davis Hanson: They will but there’s hundreds of bridges in Iran. I know. So you just say, we’re going to hit the bridges, and are they going to get people to come out every single day from dawn to dusk? No. Sami Winc: No. Victor Davis Hanson: You don’t tell them. You just say, one bridge today, one power plant. I’m not going to tell you where they are. If they start shooting at tankers or if they send missiles at the Gulf States or Israel or our ships—our ships support, most importantly. And the point is that while everybody says the war’s going south, we’re losing, they’re going broke. And they’ve lost half a trillion dollars in a 50-year investment, essentially, in military, industrial, nuclear infrastructure and investment. It’s gone. They had over 12,000 targets. The Israeli-American air force. So they’re going broke, and the question is now, will they be able to delay, delay, delay before they give up their enrichment and any claims that they’re going to try to stop the blockade, or will the propaganda campaign in the United States so embolden them and be so successful that they can drag this out for months and then get the Democrats elected to cut off funds? I don’t see that happening, but that’s their deranged strategy. Sami Winc: Yes, it is deranged, and yeah, if I were Donald Trump, I would just say, you can—even dallying too much. Take a bridge out, take a power plant. Victor Davis Hanson: Donald Trump does not want—  Don’t let him dally. If you’re Donald Trump and you’re in the Oval Office, this is what’s happening: someone comes in, he says, I’m up for reelection. And we were a red state plus 10. But my polls show me, even. I was five ahead before this war. The Democratic propaganda is killing us. Another senator comes in: gas prices in my state are too high. When is this going to end? And the point is that he’s trying to do something for the next century. If he can destroy this regime or destroy its ability to cause havoc, there will be a regime change. Not now. Just like the fall of the Berlin Wall. Once you destroy the edifice of communism, in that case, then the Soviet Union fell within two years, and Eastern Europe was free within six months. That will happen. So his view is that this is an existential moment because it’s going to change the entire Middle East. It already has. The Gulf states are now partners with Israel. And this is very interesting because if you look at the Democratic Party and the paleo-Right and Europe, they are more anti-Israel than are the Gulf states right now. No question about it. And this is ironic because a lot of the people who have been hammering Trump about the war on the Right, have financial ties with the Middle East. And they are telling them, what are you doing trying to call off Trump? He’s trying to eliminate this threat right across the Gulf from us, that for 47 years has threatened to destroy us. And for the first time we’ve had an American president that might just neuter them permanently. So be quiet. The whole thing is so misrepresented. And, you know, there was, I guess it was an MS—that’s what they call MSNBC now—I think it was an anchorwoman, and she was listening to some Democratic guests come on. And she finally said, so you are saying, as Jimmy Kimmel said, that you trust the Iranian government more than you do us. And you want to think, well, what do you trust, that they were telling the truth about nuclear enrichment? They just admitted they could make 11 bombs. Were they telling the truth about missile range? They said only 1,800 miles. It was going to go 2,500 miles all the way to Diego Garcia, if had it not been knocked down. So that’s what they do, is lie. But this Democratic Party—it’s not the Democratic Party at all. It’s something different. It’s something weird. I thought it was just a Socialist party, but it’s almost becoming an Islamist party, because of the intense antisemitism.

Virginia Democrats dealt Republicans a major defeat in the national redistricting war with a successful redistricting ballot measure on Tuesday, but the final battle may take place in Tallahassee, Florida. On Tuesday, over 51% of voters opted to support allowing Virginia’s Democrat-controlled Legislature to redraw the 11-seat congressional map to boot up to four of the state’s five Republicans from Congress. Should courts reaffirm the referendum’s result, it will likely offset any gains Republicans may have hoped for from a year of tit-for-tat redistricting that began with the Texas Legislature drawing five new Republican-friendly districts during the summer of 2025. To my eye, Dems have definitively taken the lead in the mid-decade redistricting battle for this cycle. Ds will likely gain 8-10 seats Rs will likely gain 4-8 seatsAnd it seems like an awfully big risk for FL to further redraw its map given the swings we’re seeing in… https://t.co/LejUpLJvEJ pic.twitter.com/zSqgWZYQvF— Adam Carlson (@admcrlsn) April 21, 2026 Democrats first retaliated with the passage of a constitutional ballot measure to allow California to redraw its congressional map. Later, Republicans in the Indiana state Senate shot down a Trump-backed redistricting plan, although maps were redrawn in North Carolina and Ohio to Republicans’ benefit. Now, Republicans may look to Florida to land another blow in the fight. In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis called for a special session of the Florida Legislature focused on redistricting to take place in April. The four-day session starts Tuesday, April 28. The governor has argued that since “Florida has experienced 10 years’ worth of population growth in, like, three,” its districts “are not fairly apportioned.” .@RepJeffries "Our message to Florida Republicans is F around and find out. If they go down the road of a DeSantis 'dummymander', the Florida Republicans are going to find themselves in the same situation as Texas Republicans." pic.twitter.com/3zFoRXRLvD— CSPAN (@cspan) April 22, 2026 Florida has 20 Republicans and eight Democrats in its House delegation. It last redistricted in 2022 under DeSantis. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who campaigned for the Virginia ballot measure, said after the Democrat victory that any retaliatory redistricting attempt in Florida would stretch Republicans’ voters too thin and boost Democrats’ chances. “If Florida Republicans proceed with this illegal scheme, they will only create more prime pick-up opportunities for Democrats,” Jeffries said, vowing to “aggressively target” Republican incumbents. DeSantis fired back at Jeffries’ threats to target Florida seats in a press conference on Wednesday, saying, “Please, be my guest. I will pay for you to come down to Florida to campaign. I’ll put you up in the Florida governor’s mansion.” Congressman Jeffries — come on down to Florida and make our day. pic.twitter.com/3yzk9R4vc5— Team DeSantis (@TeamDeSantis) April 22, 2026 He added, “There’s nothing that could be better for Republicans in Florida than to see Jeffries … everywhere around this state. Voters will not like what they see.” A potential obstacle to pro-Republican redistricting in Florida is a state constitutional amendment blocking redistricting “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.”