Donald Trump is well positioned to sweep Nevada\u2019s 26 delegates in the caucuses that will be run by the state Republican Party on Thursday night, a contest where party officials who are backing him shaped the rules in his favor \u2014 and no other prominent GOP candidate dared to compete.<\/p>\n
Nevada is the third early-state contest where delegates are on the line, coming after Iowa and New Hampshire, where the former president won decisively and claimed a commanding advantage in the race for the Republican nomination.<\/p>\n
The Nevada Republican Party is holding its caucuses two days after the state-run primary where Trump\u2019s name did not appear on the Republican ballot that was mailed to every registered voter. Nikki Haley \u2014 the only major contender still competing against Trump for the nomination \u2014 still faced an embarrassing setback in the primary when far more voters selected \u201cnone of these candidates\u201d instead of her name.<\/p>\n
But under the state GOP rules, candidates were not permitted to compete in both contests and the primary was virtually meaningless because the party\u2019s delegates will be allocated to whichever candidate wins Thursday\u2019s caucus. Trump is the only major candidate competing in the caucuses.<\/p>\n
After Haley and several other GOP candidates placed their names on the primary ballot \u2014 and chose to forgo the caucuses \u2014 Trump\u2019s allies and supporters said they intended to select the \u201cnone of these candidates\u201d option on the ballot as a show of support for the former president.<\/p>\n
Haley\u2019s campaign manager emphasized this week that the former South Carolina governor had not spent any money or effort in Nevada after concluding that the delegate rules were shaped by the state\u2019s party leaders in a fashion that would be most favorable to Trump.<\/p>\n
During a January rally in Nevada, Trump told his backers to ignore the primary altogether. \u201cDon\u2019t waste your time on primary, waste all of your time on caucus,\u201d he said, adding \u201cthe primary doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump won the GOP caucuses in Nevada in 2016 on the strength of his anti-establishment appeal and his promises to \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d in Washington, outmaneuvering competitors who were better organized, including Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.). President Biden narrowly won the 2020 general election race in Nevada, but Trump has maintained a firm grip on the loyalty of the GOP base in the Silver State.<\/p>\n
Nevada voters had selected its presidential nominees for decades by attending the caucuses held by their respective parties. But after the 2020 elections, Democratic lawmakers pushed to hold a statewide primary and forgo the caucuses, which often drew low turnout and were largely controlled by party activists. Over the objections of Republicans, Democratic state lawmakers passed a 2021 law guaranteeing that every state voter would receive a primary ballot in the mail, as well as options to vote in person or at a drop box.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s Republican leaders sued the state \u2014 arguing that Democratic lawmakers could not determine their process for choosing delegates \u2014 and won the right to award delegates through their caucus process. The conflict resulted in the confusing situation this week in which GOP voters were able to cast a ballot in Tuesday\u2019s state-run primary but will decide which candidate should get the 26 delegates in the separate Republican Party-run caucuses on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who was endorsed by Trump in his 2022 run but initially stayed neutral in the 2024 presidential race, was among those who chose to support \u201cnone of these candidates\u201d in Tuesday\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n
In a January interview with the Nevada Independent, Lombardo said he planned to caucus for Trump and was choosing the none-of-the-above option because \u201cthe race is over.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump is well positioned to sweep Nevada\u2019s 26 delegates in the caucuses that will be run by the state Republican Party on Thursday night, a contest where party officials who are backing him shaped the rules in his favor \u2014 and no other prominent GOP candidate dared to compete. Nevada is the third early-state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":787,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}