Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks after he wins the Nevada caucus during a watch party at Treasure Island Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.
Friday, Feb. 9, 2024 | 10:22 a.m.
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Republicans were quick to boast about long lines outside caucus locations Thursday as people turned out to support former President Donald Trump.
Some loyalists reportedly waited in line three hours to caucus for Trump.
But the turnout paled in comparison to the support received by President Joe Biden on Tuesday in the state’s Democratic presidential preference primary.
Biden received about 89.4% of the vote statewide, according to unofficial results posted by the Nevada secretary of state. As of 10 a.m. Friday, the secretary of state reported that 134,281 of 595,943, or 22% of Nevada’s active registered Democrats had cast a ballot.
Mail ballots are continuing to come into county election offices. Those postmarked no later than Tuesday and received before 5 p.m. Saturday will be included in the final tally.
By comparison, 60,081 Republicans participated in Thursday’s caucuses, according to The New York Times (the Nevada Republican Party has not released results to the Sun). That’s about 11% of the state’s active registered Republicans. Registered Nevada Republicans were allowed to take part in both the primary and caucuses, and 14.4% of them — 80,523 — had cast a ballot in the primary.
It is unknown how many Republican voters participated in both the caucuses and primary.
The Nevada Republican Party’s rules dictated that candidates participating in the state-run GOP primary would not be listed on the ballots for the party-operated caucuses. The lone remaining major candidate on the Republican primary ballot was former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Trump was the lone remaining major GOP candidate on the caucuses ballot.
The top vote-getter in the GOP primary was “none of these candidates,” which was seen as a symbolic victory for Trump and a blow to Haley, the lone remaining major GOP challenger to Trump.
Republicans have inaccurately complained about how voting by mail is ripe for fraud, but at least 60,714 of them voted by mail in the primary. That’s more than participated in the party-run caucuses.
Participation in both the Democratic and Republican nominating contests this week was likely limited by noncompetitive fields and will almost certainly increase for the November general election.
Trump’s lone caucus challenger was Texas businessman Ryan Binkley, who received just 536 votes.
Trump made a brief appearance Thursday night at a watch party on the Strip and bragged that the caucus turnout was record setting. His claim was flat out inaccurate.
The Republican caucuses in 2016 featured 74,878 participants, or about 17% of Nevada’s 437,520 active Republican voters at the time.
“I just want to really thank the great people of Nevada,” Trump said Thursday. “This has been a tremendous state. If we win this state, we will easily win the election in November.”
Daniele Monroe-Moreno, chairman of the Nevada Democratic Party, said the “disarray that Trump and Republicans created (with the caucuses dueling with the primary) is just a preview of the mess to come over the next 10 months as they continue to do everything they can to manipulate and decimate our democracy.”
