The general trend over the past several election cycles is that Democrats tend to turn out more for early voting -- both in-person and by mail -- and build up a substantial vote lead or "firewall" while Republicans turn out in large numbers on Election Day and hope to overcome the Democratic firewall of early votes.

That doesn't appear to be the case this year, at least in Nevada, and one prominent pundit in the state who's crunched the numbers thus far just warned that Vice President Kamala Harris is in "serious danger" of losing the state to former President Donald Trump, Breitbart reported.

This is because, after the first few days of early voting in the Silver State, Republicans appear to have established an unheard-of lead of their own with increased turnout across the state, especially in the rural counties, while Democratic turnout in the state's metro counties lags behind previous cycles.

Republicans build unprecedented early vote lead in Nevada

Political commentator Jon Ralston of the Nevada Independent reported in his ongoing early voting blog that as of early Wednesday morning, some 333,000 Nevadans had already cast their ballots, which is estimated to be around a quarter of the total vote. Republicans were ahead statewide by around 12,000 votes.

That is explained at least in part by the fact that turnout in the Democrat-majority metro counties of Clark and Washoe -- Las Vegas and Reno, respectively -- was on par with or lagging behind the partisan voter registration numbers while the predominately Republican rural counties were ahead of the pace on turnout.

Assuming that both VP Harris and former President Trump maintain their partisan voter bases and these initial turnout trends continue through the early voting period, that means Harris will need to win over Nevada's independent voters by double digits to overcome the Republican lead, in Ralston's view.

Early Nevada numbers "signal serious danger" for Harris

Those numbers in Ralston's Wednesday morning update were actually a slight improvement for Democrats compared to the blogger's Monday night figures, which favored Republicans in a way that hasn't been seen in Nevada since the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) built his vaunted Democrat "machine" that dominated statewide politics and voter turnout.

"Republicans lead statewide in Nevada after three days of early voting and mail ballot counting," Ralston wrote. "This has not happened in a presidential year in The Reid Machine Era, which encompasses the races since 2008. This could signal serious danger for the Dems and for Kamala Harris here."

He further explained: "The Clark firewall has all but collapsed (it's 4,500 votes) and the rurals are way overperforming their share of the electorate with what has been tabulated, nearly by 4 points -- almost all taken from Clark's share. The large mail ballot lead enjoyed by Dems has been erased and more by the GOP lead in in-person early voting."

Democratic registration advantage is largely gone

To be sure, Ralston sprinkled plenty of caveats throughout his blog posts, including that it is still too early to declare any emerging trends as definitive, that it is unknown how independent voters will ultimately break for the two major candidates, and the possibility that Republicans could be "cannibalizing" their usual Election Day turnout advantage with the increased turnout for early voting.

That said, the number-crunching pundit is not alone in suggesting that VP Harris may be facing trouble in Nevada, as The Hill reported earlier this month that voter registration figures alone provided multiple "red flags" for the Democratic nominee in the Silver State -- plus the important battlegrounds of Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

In 2020, Democrats enjoyed a registration lead of around 79,000 voters over Republicans before the start of the early voting period, but that advantage has dropped by about 50,000 to just a 29,000 voter lead in this cycle, which could be enough for Trump to flip the blue state to red, given that President Biden only won the state by around 33,500 votes in 2020.

Trump is leading most polls in Nevada

Another bad sign for VP Harris comes from RealClearPolling's average of polls in Nevada, which currently shows former President Trump with a lead just shy of one point.

That may not sound like much but it is actually significant in light of the fact that, at this same point in the 2020 and 2016 races, President Biden and failed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton both held leads of 5.2 points but ended up winning the state by a much smaller margin.