The race was for Trump, with less than 1 percent of votes reported as of 8:05 PM PST just 35 minutes after caucus locations closed. Trump was in the lead with more than 97 percent of the votes. The former president was elated as he headed to Las Vegas Thursday afternoon following oral arguments at the Supreme Court, where both conservative and liberal justices expressed skepticism about the state’s efforts to keep the ex-president off the 2024 ballot.
“If we win this state, we will easily win the November election,” Trump told enthusiastic MAGA-oriented Republicans gathered at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino to celebrate his victory. He spent the day responding to oral arguments from the Nevada caucuses, as well as a blockbuster Justice Department report that essentially deemed President Joe Biden too weak to commit a crime in the classified documents case to accuse.
Trump headed straight to Treasure Island for his caucus night party after landing in Las Vegas, where he was joined by surrogates, allies and caucus captains. Meanwhile, his remaining competitor, former UN ambassador. Nikki Haley was not present for the caucus vote. She refused to spend the $55,000 needed to participate in the caucus and repeatedly claimed that the primaries were “rigged” by MAGA-affiliated Nevada Republicans to hand him victory and delegates.
Trump did not congratulate anyone after Haley came second in Tuesday’s primaries and lost to the “none of these candidates” option. ‘Do you know what happened last night? None of the above,” Trump said, confusing the day of the primaries, which was Tuesday night and not Wednesday.
“I wouldn’t congratulate any of the above people,” he joked to laughter from the audience. “I was one of those none of the above – and they won by 44 points.” Long-awaited 2024 Republican hopeful and Texas-based businessman and preacher Ryan Binkley was a caucus competitor of Trump. He had only 9 votes at the time the race was called.
These renewed calls from Haley demand that the president take a mental competency test to prove he is fit to continue serving as CEO. DOJ noted in its report that during the interview, Biden on several occasions forgot the years in which he began and ended his vice presidential term — and could not remember the year his son Beau died.
“Biden took the documents in his ‘mental primetime.’ He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this, and he wasn’t protected by the Presidential Records Act,” Trump complained in a Truth Social post on Thursday. ‘I cooperated with the investigators. Crooked Joe Biden didn’t do that. On the contrary, according to the usual, corrupt Democratic Playbook. He ‘intentionally withheld’ documents. This is a scam.”
As Trump prepared to deliver his victory speech, his Nevada surrogates and allies descended on a ballroom on Treasure Island. The DOJ revealed in Thursday’s report that it would not file charges against Biden because he would likely present himself to a jury “as a likable, well-meaning, older man with a poor memory.”
Just hours before Nevada announced its results, Trump also scored a victory in the third primary of the cycle in the caucuses in the US Virginia Islands. He won 73.9 percent of the vote, compared to Haley’s 26 percent and is expected to take all the islands’ available delegates.
“This was a very big day for your favorite president, the Republican Party and democracy!” he noted, likely referring not only to his victory but also to the DOJ report and the SCOTUS arguments. Vegas-based Trump Senior Advisor Kash Patel told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that winning Nevada is the “key to the West” as he drew parallels between the demographics and priorities of voters in the Silver State and in Arizona – a must win in 2024.
Nevada turned blue in 2016 and 2020, but Arizona was a red state that turned blue in 2020, which Trump and Biden see as a priority to capture the White House in 2024. Although Tuesday’s primaries were only symbolic after the Nevada Republican Party decided that all delegates would be awarded in Thursday’s caucuses, Trump was still the biggest winner that night.
Haley’s stunning defeat proves that Trump supporters are so enthusiastic and mobilized that they were willing to make two symbolic appearances and then actually cast their votes for the former president. Trump only took part in the caucuses after the Republican Party said all candidates who had registered for the primaries were excluded from the election two days later. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley finished second in the primaries behind the “none of these candidates” option, which offered voters the chance to vote for no one an effort led by Trump Senior Advisor Kash Patel.
