CNN
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Donald Trump won the Nevada Republican presidential caucus on Thursday, with his only remaining prominent rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, choosing not to compete for state delegates, CNN reported. This effectively ensured victory.
The former president has now won all three previous Republican races, including the Silver State in Iowa and New Hampshire, and is closing in on the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Thursday's caucuses in Nevada came two days after the state's primary election. President Joe Biden dominated the Democratic race, and “no other candidate” came in first place over Haley.
The Nevada Republican Party, led by Trump allies, chose not to award delegates through party-run primaries and barred candidates from the caucus vote. So the only person Trump faced on Thursday was Ryan Binkley, a little-known Dallas pastor.
President Trump once again tried to pull Haley out of the race as he prepared to travel to Nevada to deliver a congratulatory speech on Thursday.
“I think she's hurting herself, but I think she's hurting the party and in some ways hurting the country,” Trump said Thursday outside his Mar-a-Lago home.
On Thursday, Trump's political fortunes faced a judgment beyond the ballot box. Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about whether the former president's actions before and after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol disqualified him from running for president.
The Nevada Republican Party isn't the only party holding a rally Thursday. Trump is expected to defeat Haley in the U.S. Virgin Islands Republican caucus and win four delegates from the region, CNN predicts.
Haley faced an embarrassing outcome on Tuesday, finishing second to “none of these candidates” in Nevada's non-legally binding primary. This result likely reflects the support of Trump among many Republican voters, who have given all candidates the option to express their dissatisfaction with the candidates on the ballot.
There was no candidate, but he wanted to prove to Republican donors and voters that he was a strong candidate for the next big head-to-head showdown with Trump in South Carolina on February 24. For Ms. Haley, the primary election was a setback. Major.
“We always knew Nevada was a fraud,” Haley said in an interview on FOX Business Wednesday. “Trump engineered fraud from the beginning. … We didn't spend a day or a dollar there. We weren't worried about that either.”
Meanwhile, Trump has urged supporters in the Silver State to skip the primaries and vote in the caucuses.
“Your state has both a primary and a caucus. Don't worry about the primary, just do the caucus,” he told attendees at a recent Las Vegas rally.
The dueling competitions were the result of a 2021 state law that eliminated Nevada's presidential caucuses in favor of government-sponsored primaries. Supporters said the measure would reduce implementation complexity and reduce voter confusion.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
A pair of ballot drop boxes are displayed at a voter center in Las Vegas during the Nevada presidential primary on February 6, 2024.
But the Nevada Republican Party, led by Trump supporters, chose to hold caucuses this year anyway and award the state's delegates to the Republican National Convention based on the results. It also warned candidates who participated in the primaries that they were not eligible to participate in the party's caucuses or receive delegates.
Still, some Republican presidential candidates, including Haley, have filed to run in the primary. Trump was the last major candidate remaining in Thursday's caucuses, effectively guaranteeing his victory. (Thursday's vote saw only token opposition from unknown Texas pastor Ryan Binkley.)
Democrats have decided on Nevada's 2024 presidential delegates based on the results of Tuesday's first-place Western primary. President Joe Biden won a landslide victory, fueling his victory in South Carolina on his way to securing his party's nomination for the second time. semester.
Because Nevada does not have a competitive primary, major presidential candidates paid little attention to the Silver State. Biden won by a narrow margin in 2020, but the situation is likely to change in the fall when Nevada, which flipped the governorship to Republicans in 2022, becomes a battleground state for the president and Senate.
CNN's David Wright, Ethan Cohen and Terence Burlij contributed to this report.
