Former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak at a Commit to Caucus rally at the Big League Dreams sports park Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024.
Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024 | 5:40 p.m.
On the first day of the early voting period for Nevada’s presidential primary, former President Donald Trump on Saturday told thousands of attendees at a Las Vegas rally not to vote in the upcoming primary, but to instead participate in the caucus being organized by the state Republican Party.
The Nevada GOP has opted to hold its own presidential nominating contest on Feb. 8 separate from the Feb. 6 Presidential Preference Primary administered by state officials, and will use that as the sole means to allocate delegates to determine the Republican presidential nominee for November’s general election. Trump is widely considered the presumptive nominee and is poised to take all 26 of Nevada’s delegates after winning in Iowa and New Hampshire earlier this month.
“Don’t vote on Tuesday, Feb. 6, that’s two days earlier (than the caucus),” Trump told the roughly 2,000 attendees who came to the Big League Dreams sports park on the valley’s east side. “Don’t use the mail-in ballots. Don’t do anything. It’s a meaningless event. There are no delegates. It’s a con job.”
The crowd also heard remarks from several prominent Nevada conservatives, including state party chairman Michael McDonald, who is facing state charges stemming from his involvement in a so-called fake elector scheme in an attempt to falsely certify Nevada’s 2020 vote for Trump. Also in the crowd were Nevada GOP Senate candidates Sam Brown, former Ambassador to Greenalnd Jeff Gunter and Jim Marchant, as well as a slew of state legislators.
“He’s fighting for your freedom, and now it’s your turn to fight for him,” McDonald told the crowd onstage. “I talked with the president, I said, ‘I guarantee you, Nevada will show up and we will deliver you 100% of delegates from the state of Nevada to Donald J. Trump.”
Trump said voting in the primary would only benefit former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the lone challenger to the former president for the GOP nomination, and also contended a primary win for her will amount to nothing more than good publicity for her campaign. Haley had originally committed to the primary, and state GOP rules forbid candidates from running in the primary and the caucus.
Since last week, Gov. Joe Lombardo and Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony, both Republicans, announced they would be caucusing for Trump and voting for “None of these candidates,” in the primary. And while that may be a viable option for some, others who attended the rally said they will only partake in the contest that benefits Trump.
“I will most definitely be voting in the caucus,” said Paula Friend, 65, of Las Vegas. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about the primary, because it’s garbage. They didn’t give me a line to put who I would vote for, and ‘none of the above’ just is not exactly me.”
Though Trump spoke for more than an hour, he only spent a few minutes discussing the caucus. The bulk of his remarks centered on immigration at the U.S. southern border and slamming his successor, President Joe Biden as the two appear poised for a rematch in November.
He called the record surge of migrants flowing into the U.S. an “invasion” and said if elected he would use the full authority of the executive branch to close the border. Trump also signaled support for Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, whose administration is in an ongoing legal dispute with the Department of Justice after deploying the Texas National Guard to respond to the border.
The Justice Department contends only the federal government has the authority to police its borders, while Republican governors from 25 states, including Nevada, have issued statements supporting Abbott.
“Governor Lombardo and I are listening, and the things that we’ve been doing, that we’re trying to do here in the state of Nevada, is to try and make Nevada great again,“ Anthony said. “It’s not enough to be done here in Nevada. It has to be done on the national level. We need to make America great again.”
While Trump was in town, Democrats had sent in their own notables to kick off early voting. Vice President Kamala Harris was at a rally that was attended by much of Nevada’s congressional delegation, while Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff toured local small businesses with Small Business Administrator Isabel Guzman.
Even with all the political buzz in Las Vegas, Trump’s message was clear to attendees that he is the only alternative to Biden.
“If you want to save America, then get everyone you know to vote in the Nevada caucuses,” Trump said.
Winning Clark County, home to about 70% of the state population, in 2024 could prove to be a challenge for Trump. In 2020, he lost to Biden by a margin of 9.4 percentage points, or 90,922 votes. Biden also carried Nevada, though by a smaller margin overall of about 2.3 percentage points, or about 34,000 votes.
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