Former president Donald Trump handily won the Nevada Republican caucuses Thursday evening as the only major candidate to compete.
The state found itself in the unusual position of holding both a primary and a Republican caucus after the state legislature passed a bill in 2021 to shift away from the traditional party-run caucus process in favor of a state-run primary. The state GOP unsuccessfully sued and ultimately elected to hold a caucus to determine the allocation of the state’s 26 delegates.
Candidates were required to choose which contest to participate in; Nikki Haley decided to appear on the primary ballot, while Trump chose to participate in the caucus.
Registered Republicans were allowed to vote in both contests, but only the caucus would be used to determine the allocation of the state’s delegates.
Still, despite the state’s not featuring a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Haley, the former South Carolina governor still faced a public-relations nightmare earlier this week when Nevada Republicans chose the “none of these candidates” option over Haley in the state’s GOP primary.
With 86 percent of Tuesday’s vote counted, the “none of these candidates” option secured 63 percent of the votes, while Haley earned just 30.8 percent. Former vice president Mike Pence, who dropped out months ago, notched 3.9 percent, and Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.), who has also exited the race, won 1.4 percent of the vote.
Haley’s advisers are downplaying the Nevada results.
“We have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney said during an expectation-setting press call Monday morning. “We made the decision early on that we were not going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity to participate in a process that was rigged for Trump.”
Trump also notched another win on Thursday, besting Haley 74 percent to 26 percent in the Virgin Islands’ first ranked-choice contest. The former president will pick up four delegates from the win.
The contests come after Trump defeated Haley in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
The next primary contest will occur in Haley’s native South Carolina, where her campaign is tempering expectations as it continues to set its sights on a number of upcoming open or semi-open primaries on Super Tuesday. In an open primary, voters do not have to formally register with a political party ahead of Election Day in order to vote in that party’s primary. In a semi-open primary, voters who are not affiliated with a political party can choose which party’s primary they would like to participate in.
Of 874 delegates up for grabs on March 5, nearly two-thirds are in states with open or semi-open primaries, including Texas, Maine, and Virginia. The campaign is eyeing several states that have a large contingent of college-educated voters, suburban voters, and independents, all of whom tend to support Haley over Trump. Those states include Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia.
But first comes her home-state primary on February 24. On the Monday press call, Ankney declined to set a specific goal in South Carolina, saying that Haley “wants to be strong in South Carolina and continue to show momentum and continue to gain support.”