Joe Biden romps to victory in Nevada’s Democratic presidential primary while Donald Trump ignores results of Republican primary

Neva­da was part of the 2020 ultra MAGA assault on Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy, in which Don­ald Trump tried to steal the most recent pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, a gam­bit which he lost and that has sad­dled “The Don­ald” with a four indict­ments and mil­lions of dol­lars in legal fees. He has craft­ed an actu­al fix to lock in the Sil­ver State’s del­e­gates to the 2024 Repub­li­can Nation­al Convention.

The Trump forces, who run the par­ty in Neva­da, refused to uti­lize the results of the state-run pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry on Tues­day. They will instead use cau­cus­es on Thurs­day to choose the Sil­ver State’s con­ven­tion delegates.

Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates were giv­en the choice of cam­paign­ing in a mean­ing­less pri­ma­ry, or con­test­ing in the cau­cus­es. But not both.

The Trump-friend­ly del­e­gate selec­tion plan effec­tive­ly left Nik­ki Haley on the beau­ty con­test pri­ma­ry bal­lot, but left out of the par­ty-run caucuses.

“We have not spent a dime nor an ounce of ener­gy on Neva­da,” Bet­sy Ankney, Haley’s cam­paign man­ag­er, told reporters on a con­fer­ence call Tuesday.

Trump flew in for a ral­ly late last month, and told fol­low­ers not to vote in the “mean­ing­less” pri­ma­ry. Behind the scenes, how­ev­er, the cam­paign passed the word for ultra MAGA forces to mark the “None of These Can­di­dates” box that Neva­da law makes avail­able to pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry voters.

The result has been a dou­ble win for Trump this week.

He want­ed Haley to look ugly in the beau­ty con­test. She did. “None of These Can­di­dates” was trounc­ing Haley by a two-to-one mar­gin last night. And Trump will har­vest all of Nevada’s del­e­gates from the cau­cus­es tomor­row night..

The ear­ly-sea­son Neva­da pri­ma­ry was a cre­ation of the late Unit­ed States Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid, a force in Sil­ver State pol­i­tics. He set out to make what Neva­da polit­i­cal pun­dit Jon Ral­ston dubbed a we mat­ter state.

Reid argued that the West need­ed a voice in pick­ing the Democ­rats’ pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee. He tout­ed the diver­si­ty of his state. Neva­da has a big Lati­no pop­u­la­tion, plus a grow­ing and sur­pris­ing­ly large num­ber of Asians and Pacif­ic Islanders in its elec­torate. The Culi­nary Work­ers Union, rep­re­sent­ing casi­no employ­ees, gives orga­nized labor a pow­er­ful pres­ence in Las Vegas.

What hap­pens in Las Vegas – polit­i­cal­ly – does not stay in Vegas. The city’s bal­lots gave Joe Biden six much-need­ed elec­toral votes in 2020: Biden car­ried Neva­da with just 50.1 per­cent of the vote. A big Las Vegas major­i­ty tipped the scales for Nevada’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Cather­ine Cortez Mas­tro, the last 2022 Sen­ate race to be decid­ed. Cortez Mas­tro won by few­er than 8,000 votes.

Pres­i­dent Biden was tak­ing 89% of the vote in last night’s Neva­da pri­ma­ry. Although vir­tu­al­ly unop­posed, the 46th Pres­i­dent has cam­paigned and raised mon­ey in the state. Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris also appeared to turn out the vote and turn up enthu­si­asm among Demo­c­ra­t­ic voters.

“The late, great Har­ry Reid always remind­ed us: If you can win in Neva­da, you can win any­where,” Har­ris told a ral­ly. “Har­ry, Pres­i­dent Biden and I are going to prove you right once again.”