Nevada Holds Presidential Primaries: Biden and Haley on the Ballot, Trump Absent

Nevada, a key early voting state in the race for the White House, held its Democratic and Republican presidential primaries on Tuesday, February 6, 2024. This event marked a significant milestone in the 2024 presidential election campaign.

In the Democratic primary, President Joe Biden was the heavy favorite, having already secured a landslide victory in the South Carolina primary just a few days prior. The Nevada Democratic primary was expected to further solidify his position as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

However, the Republican primary was far from simple. Only one of the two major contenders, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, was listed on the state-run ballot. The other contender, former President Donald Trump, was not on the ballot but would be listed in a separate Republican caucus two days later.

The origins of the competing contests can be traced back to 2021 when Democrats, who at the time controlled both Nevada’s governor’s office and the legislature, passed a law changing the presidential nominating contest from long-held caucuses to a state-run primary. The Nevada GOP objected, but their legal bid to stop the primary from going forward was rejected. In a twist, the judge in the case allowed the state Republicans to hold their own caucuses. No delegates would be at stake in the Republican primary, while all 26 would be up for grabs in the GOP caucus.

The state GOP ruled that candidates who put their name on the state-run primary ballot could not take part in the caucuses. Haley and some of the other Republican presidential candidates viewed the Nevada GOP as too loyal to Trump and decided to skip the caucus they believed was tipped in favor of the former president. Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald and both of the state’s members of the Republican National Committee were supporting Trump.

Trump’s campaign had some concerns about the potential outcome of the caucus. An unpleasant scenario for Trump, who had won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary by double-digits, could be Haley grabbing more votes in the primary than Trump lands in the caucus.

While Trump was expected to win all 26 delegates at stake in the caucus, registered Republicans in Nevada could vote in both contests. And in the GOP primary, there was no vehicle for voters to write in Trump’s name. The choices on the ballot were Haley and a “none of these candidates” option. Trump’s campaign had been working to get the message out to supporters in Nevada that if they wanted to vote for the former president, they needed to show up at the caucuses.

Republican Governor Joe Lombardo, who was supporting Trump, told the Nevada Independent last month that he would vote for “none of the above” in Tuesday’s primary and caucus for Trump in the state GOP’s contest on Thursday. A source in Trump’s political orbit told Fox News that team Trump was “fortunate that Haley doesn’t have her act together in Nevada.”

Trump was expected to return to Las Vegas on Thursday for a caucus celebration. Haley was not returning to Nevada that week and hadn’t campaigned in the state since speaking in late October at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership conference.

“In terms of Nevada, we have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney told reporters. “So Nevada is not and has never been our focus.”

This week’s contests were just an appetizer for Nevada, which as a key general election battleground state would see plenty of campaign traffic this summer and autumn.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.

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