Donald Trump won the Nevada Republican caucus, being the only major candidate to participate

Trump’s last great Republican rival, a former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley dismissed the caucus as rigged And decided instead to participate in Tuesday’s purely symbolic Republican primary, where she was soundly defeated by the “none of these candidates” option favored by Trump supporters and disaffected voters.

Trump wins in Nevada It gives 26 state representatives. Need to collect 1,215 delegates to formally win the party nomination And this figure can be reached in March.

The Nevada Republican Party decided to avoid a primary election set by the legislature and instead hold a caucus to decide which candidate would receive its delegates, a decision supported by Trump’s team.

The resulting system allowed the party to have more control over who ran and gave Trump a bigger lead than he already had, but confused some voters.

As stated in his campaign His early efforts are the foundation for when Nevada becomes a political swing state. In November.

“Nevada is a battleground in the general election and everything we do now for the caucus and organization will pay dividends in the coming weeks as we begin the general election against Joe Biden,” said Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita.

While Trump and Haley will not face off in Nevada on Thursday, they did compete in the Republican caucus in the US Virgin Islands. Trump won the race by a wide margin, carrying all four of the region’s delegates.

According to AP agency estimates, Trump received 73% of the vote and Haley 26%.

“The news just came in that we won a landslide in the Virgin Islands caucus, all the delegates (…) I just called the participants to thank them. They are celebrating and having a good time, “They deserve it! It has been a great day. For his favorite president, the Republican Party and democracy,” the former president expressed in Truth Social.

Neither Trump nor Haley They campaigned in the Virgin Islands, focusing on the state of Nevada,

Where the former governor of South Carolina also ran in the primary and failed because voters chose not to support any of the candidates in the polls.

Caucuses require candidates to cultivate more grassroots support and spend resources planning to ensure that voters show up at a specific time and place in the evening to show their support. This system benefits Trump, with support from the party’s base over the years he and his team have spent cultivating local party members.

Republicans are increasingly rallying behind Trump as he faces an avalanche of legal problems, including 91 criminal charges in four separate cases. Trump is increasing his influence in both Congress (where Republicans rejected a border security deal after lobbying against him) and the Republican National Committee, as Chairwoman Rona McDaniel may resign in the coming weeks after she publicly questioned whether she would be in office. should stay

Trump still faces an unprecedented threat for a major candidate. Federal Appeals Panel ruled this week that Trump could face trial on conspiracy charges to overturn the 2020 election results, rejecting his claims that he is immune from prosecution.

The US The Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments in a case seeking to bar Trump from trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the 2024 presidential election. Judges were largely skeptical of the effort.

But none of those developments hurt his standing among Republicans, including in Nevada.