Two days after Republican candidate Nikki Haley lost the Nevada Republican primary to “none of these,” in a primary run by the Nevada Secretary of State, former President Donald Trump won the Nevada Republican Caucus on Thursday, which means he will get all of the 26 Nevada GOP delegates to the Republican National Nominating Convention in July.
Trump received 97.6% of the vote. Only one other candidate was participating — Ryan Binkley, who had 2.4%. (Note: He is not the Ryan Binkley who is president of the Anchorage Daily News).
Trump didn’t take part in the non-binding primary that the state ran, but Haley did. She took second after “none of these candidates” received the most votes.
There was confusion in Nevada after the state decided to do a primary, but the Republican Party said it would stick to its own nominating process, via caucus. Primary ballots were mailed out to eligible voters and Nevadans were also able to vote in person. For the caucuses, voters had to attend in person from 5-7.30 pm PT at their local GOP polling location and provide photo ID in order to participate.
In the Nevada Democrat Primary, Biden won with 112,611 votes and gets 36 delegates at the Democrat Party’s national convention. On Thursday, Marianne Williamson, a self-help guru running as a Democrat for president, suspended her campaign.
“We did what we could to shed some light in some very darkened times. For that I will always be so grateful,” Williamson said on social media.
Trump is far-and-away leading in the delegate count in the march toward the national GOP convention.
The Virgin Islands also held their GOP caucus on Thursday and Trump won 74% of the vote, getting all four delegates. The vote was 184 for Trump, 62 for Haley.
There are 2,429 delegates total available for the GOP convention in Milwaukee, which takes place July 15–18, and 1,215 delegates are needed to win the nomination. With 157 days to go, Trump now has 62 delegates, while Haley trails at 18.
The next primary contest is in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where she served as governor from 2011 to 2017. That primary will be held Saturday, Feb. 24, 15 days from this writing. Fifty delegates to the Republican National Convention will be allocated on a winner-takes-all basis.
Morning Consult, a polling firm, has Trump leading Haley, who served as his ambassador to the United Nations, among registered voters (of any party or those with no party) who say they will vote in the South Carolina Republican primary. Trump leads with 68% to Haley’s 31%. South Carolina allows anyone to vote in either the Republican or Democrat primary, but if they have already voted in the Democrat primary of Feb. 3, they will not be able to vote in the Republican primary.
The Democrats held their primary in South Carolina on a different date because they were instructed to do so by President Joe Biden, who wanted the Palmetto State to go first before New Hampshire, since blacks in South Carolina helped him win in 2020. He won the Feb. 3 primary with 126,336 votes, over 96% of those who voted, giving him 65 delegates.
On the website Fivethirtyeight.com, which aggregates polling, Trump is now polling at nearly 76% among likely Republican voters, and Haley is polling at nearly 18%, in polls done nationally.
