Trump wins Nevada, Virgin Islands to close in on Republican nomination
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was the only major candidate competing in Nevada’s caucuses.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEVADA - Donald Trump won Republican presidential nominating caucuses in Nevada and the US Virgin Islands on Feb 8, moving closer to becoming his party’s White House standard-bearer and a likely general election rematch with US President Joe Biden in November.
Trump, the front runner in his party’s nominating race,
Earlier on Feb 8, Trump easily won the US Virgin Islands caucuses, adding four to his delegate haul. The former US president won 182 votes, or 74 per cent of the 246 votes cast there, beating his last remaining rival in the Republican race, Mrs Nikki Haley, who won 26 per cent support with 64 votes.
The Nevada caucuses, organised by the Trump-friendly Nevada Republican Party, came two days after a state-run primary election, which saw a humiliating defeat for Mrs Haley.
Despite being the only major candidate on the Republican primary ballot on Feb 6, Mrs Haley was still roundly defeated after tens of thousands of Trump supporters turned out to mark their ballots with “none of these candidates”, an option which garnered 63 per cent of the vote to Mrs Haley’s 30 per cent.
Trump spent the morning of Feb 8 watching coverage of arguments in a case he appealed to the US Supreme Court concerning Colorado’s decision to remove him from 2024’s ballot for engaging in “insurrection” relating to the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
The justices appeared sceptical of Colorado’s actions, expressing concern about the precedent it could set.
Speaking to reporters afterwards, Trump called the Colorado case “more election interference by the Democrats”.
After his win, Mr Trump appeared before supporters in Las Vegas. “I want to thank the great people of Nevada,” he said to cheers, and called the Supreme Court arguments on Feb 8 “a beautiful sight to watch”.
He is close to winning the Republican nomination after back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire
Mrs Haley, a former UN ambassador, is refusing to quit the nominating race, a move which has infuriated Trump. She is vowing to make a potential last stand in her home state of South Carolina, which holds a primary election on Feb 24.
Mrs Haley has no clear path to the nomination and trails Trump badly in opinion polls in South Carolina, where she was governor for six years.
The competing Republican ballots in Nevada this week were the result of a conflict between the state Republican Party – run by Trump allies – and a 2021 state law that mandates a primary must be held.
Presidential nominating caucuses are run by state political parties, not the state, and the Nevada Republican Party decided to stick with a caucus on Feb 8. It was viewed as more helpful to Trump because of his superior ground game in the Western state.
Mrs Haley chose to compete in Tuesday’s primary. Trump went for the caucus. The state party ruled that only candidates contesting the caucus on Feb 8 could compete for delegates.
Despite the results in Nevada having little impact on the Republican nominating contest, the state will be a hotly contested battleground because its population can swing to either party and play a significant role in November’s presidential election.
In 2020, Mr Biden beat Trump in Nevada by 2.4 percentage points. Opinion polls show a likely rematch between Mr Biden and Trump in the state will be close.
About 30 per cent of Nevada’s population is self-described as Latino or Hispanic on the US Census, and Republicans are making some inroads with these voters nationwide.
Nevada also has many potential swing voters: There are 768,000 registered as “non-partisan”, more than those registered as either Democrat or Republican, according to the latest state figures. REUTERS
