Nevada elections expert pours cold water on Trump campaign's boast that he's winning the state

President Donald Trump campaign chief Bill Stepien on Monday boasted that the president was in a very solid position to win Nevada if the election were held today, despite the fact that most polls in the state show him trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden.

"If the election were held today, the president would win Nevada," Stepien said. "We've got the better candidate, we're in a better position to win this."

However, veteran Nevada political journalist Jon Ralston quickly jumped in to pour cold water on Stepien's claims.

"Amount of evidence to back this up: Zero," Ralston wrote in response. "Amount of evidence to contradict this: Lots."

Ralston in 2016 analyzed early polling information from Nevada to correctly project that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump in the state, even as the president and his campaign pulled off upsets in several other states.

And while Ralston believes that Trump still has a shot at winning, he notes that the president is once again facing an early deficit.

"He is an underdog, the Dems are ahead in early/mail voting so far and even the Adelson newspaper poll splashed on the front page Sunday showed a dead heat for him at best," Ralston writes. "If Trump had internals showing him ahead here, he would have fed the [Las Vegas Review-Journal]."