Republican caucus turnout doesn’t even reach half of Democratic primary’s historic turnout
Yesterday, the Nevada GOP held a rigged caucus to crown Donald Trump their premier leader, but thanks to their self-inflicted chaos, Republicans showed little interest in actually showing up. After more Republicans voted in Tuesday’s insignificant primary than yesterday’s caucus, the state party’s fears of low voter turnout came to fruition with Donald Trump receiving less than half of the votes received by President Biden on his respective ballot. Even after loading all of the bases in Trump’s favor, he was barely able to squeak out more votes than “none of these candidates”.
In contrast, Nevada Democrats surpassed the 2008 turnout record, banking more than 134,000 participants in the historic First in the West primary – a larger turnout than both New Hampshire and South Carolina. Democrats led the charge in transitioning from a party-run caucus to a state-run primary in order to expand access to the ballot box.
Read more below:
CNN: Trump flexes his dominance of Nevada GOP but cracks are forming in this crucial battleground
Friday, February 9, 2024
By Steve Contorno
- Trump narrowly lost Nevada in 2016 and 2020 by nearly identical narrow margins – about 2.5 percentage points. Going into the fall, it’s expected to be hotly contested once again in what is likely to be a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.
- “It’s become more about personalities than it has about winning,” said TK Crabb, the former political director of the Clark County Republican Party and a strategist for candidates. Crabb, a critic of the state party’s current leadership, was also initially barred from the Vegas rally but was eventually allowed in with the help of a friend.
- “These people don’t understand the strategy of how to win in a general,” she said, adding that she doesn’t intend to vote for Trump.
- Trump’s supremacy over the Nevada Republican Party was on full display this week. Trump won the state’s caucuses and all of its delegates on Thursday night, running essentially unopposed. His remaining opponent in the race, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, instead opted to participate in the state-run Republican primary, held two days prior – a confusing arrangement orchestrated by Trump loyalists in the state GOP.
- Haley said Trump “rigged” the state’s nominating contest after she came in a distant second place in the primary to “none of these candidates.” Trump allies, including the state’s Republican Gov. Joe Lambardo, who endorsed the former president last month, had pushed for this move.
- “We always knew Nevada was a scam,” Haley said when asked about the results. Her campaign stressed that she didn’t spend any time or money campaigning in the state. Before he exited the race, DeSantis and his allies similarly warned that Nevada Republicans had stacked the deck there in Trump’s favor.
- Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald did not respond to a call and text message seeking comment. But McDonald has not made his loyalty to Trump a secret.
- “We will deliver 100% of delegates of the state of Nevada to Donald J. Trump,” McDonald said at Trump’s Las Vegas rally.
- The refusal by these leading Republicans to accept the results of the 2020 election – and the expectation that the candidates they nominate will not as well – has already factored into several statewide races.
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