The specs found in FCC docs for what is believed to be this phone suggests that the phone contains radios that support the Sprint network which is CDMA, but does not support the Verizon LTE band.
Perhaps in the not so distant future VoLTE will be common and phones will be, conceptually at least, portal across any network.
Futhermore, the Nexus 5 is rumored to be coming out on Sprint (though definitely not Verizon).
The reason Verizon is getting passed up for two Nexus devices in a row (and probably will continue to be passed over indefinitely) is not because they are a CDMA carrier, but because of they way they mishandled the Galaxy Nexus.
In essence, Verizon doesn't want to allow phones on their network without Verizon controlling them, installing bloatware on them, etc. Verizon insisted on handling the updates for the Galaxy Nexus, and these were a joke; the Verizon GN is still not up-to-date with the most recent version of Android, last I heard[0].
And because they're a CDMA carrier, they can easily prevent phones from being used on their network.
[0] I have one, but I use Cyanogenmod so I can get timely updates.