Trump’s NV Sweep Clarifies GOP Race, But Election Is Murkier Than Ever

LAS VEGAS, Nevada—Former president and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who’ll likely die in prison if he doesn’t regain the White House (how’s that for a subplot?), advanced to the podium late on caucus night, walking slowly and with a big smile. Trump always looks happy in casinos, even ones he doesn’t own, but this particular watch party in front of a small rabid crowd on the second floor of the Treasure Island offered rare Schadenfreude possibilities. He was going to enjoy this one.

“I’d like to congratulate ‘None of the above,’” he deadpanned.

The room exploded in laughter. Two nights before, in one of the most embarrassing events yet in an election year that’s already one of the oddest and most controversial in our nation’s history, Nevada held a primary for the first time. A spate of irregularities in their own 2020 Republican caucus and Iowa’s Democratic disaster (for which there is still no declared winner) led Sagebrush State Democrats, who’ve been trying for ages to supplant Iowa and New Hampshire as the country’s first nominating contest, to pass a law in 2021 creating a Nevada presidential primary.

The catch was that the law contained a clause releasing both political parties from any obligation to use the new Nevada primary to allocate delegates. The state’s Republican leaders, who, among other things, objected to mail-in voting, decided to hold a caucus in addition to the new primary and allocate delegates through the caucus only. This created a decidedly stupid situation in which Republicans could legally vote twice in nominating contests. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, flush with donor cash as this cycle’s Never-Trump option and rumored to be determined to stay on the ballot through Super Tuesday, decided to run in the primary only, leaving the caucus and all the delegates for Trump, a situation the Brookings Institution called “clear as mud.” Running essentially unopposed in a symbolic primary: What could go wrong?

A lot, as it turned out. Over 74,000 Republicans showed up to vote on the Tuesday, Feb. 6 contest, but only 22,368 of them voted for Haley. A staggering 47,134 voted for “None of these candidates,” a 63-30% blowout that turned Nevada’s inaugural Republican primary into a cross between a high-end troll show and a third-world-style electoral FUBAR. Trump couldn’t have been happier.

“I was one of those None,” he said. “So I watched that … they won by 44 [sic] points, so I have to congratulate … But seriously, folks, we have to get back.” We’re not far from “But seriously folks” becoming a Trump stump standard.

The crowd, eclectic even by Vegas standards, hooted and hollered. Obeying local tradition, the former president introduced every ringside celebrity, Michael Buffer-style. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, dressed like a man on the lam in black street clothes and leaning against a far wall, got a shout-out. Former Masters golf tournament champion Patrick Reed and big-hitting Bryson DeChambeau filled the golfing contingent. The “Nelk boys,” a raucous and apparently immensely popular young podcast group that makes videos with titles like “Picking up girls in the Middle East,”

showed up dressed in Crayola-colored jackets and hats (one of the group greeted Trump in a Death Row Records jacket) and got a big hand from the septuagenarian ex-president. Lastly, the bullet head of UFC middleweight Sean Strickland seemed to fascinate the former president. “Look at those ears. Look at those ears,” Trump gushed. “I looked at him and said, ‘I want no part of him.’”

Trump had a lot of reasons to be cheery. In addition to the other convoluted rules, he apparently had to win over 95% of the vote against his lone caucus opponent – a Texas pastor whose social media slogan is #WhoIsRyanBinkley – in order to secure all of the state’s 26 delegates. He ended up with 99.1% to Binkley’s 0.9%, sweeping that part of this circus as well.

At Trump events, reporters always make beelines for caricatures in MAGA hats, ignoring the wide variety of other supporters who show up and usually watch from near rear exits or curtains. An 80-year-old Arizona resident who keeps a Vegas condo came up for the party and lingered near the press section. I asked what brought him here.

“Just all the misrepresentation,” he said. “On the UFO issue. All the bullshit.”

“The Area 51 stuff?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “I’ve seen them.” About Trump, he said, “I’m a big fan of him. I hate what’s going on.”

I shrugged. If you don’t hear at least one surprising explanation for coming to a Trump rally, you’re probably not working the crowd enough. This year, even UFOs aren’t exactly a far-out issue anymore. But “I hate what’s going on” will be an element of almost any supporter’s story at Trump crowds.

That the Nevada primary was essentially decided in a back-room deal by a Republican Party leadership that gamed the setup in Trump’s favor would be odd in any other election year. In 2024, most of the important battles have so far been held away from the ballot. That same morning, the Supreme Court listened to oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, the legal challenge to the Colorado Supreme Court decision to disqualify Trump on 14^th Amendment grounds, ruling that he is an insurrectionist. The proceedings seemed to go Trump’s way – even Ketanji Brown Jackson cuffed around the Colorado contingent, one of many hints at a reversal – but the mere fact the campaign had to go to the high court to maintain eligibility spoke to the extreme oddity of this election.

The irony is that four years ago, Nevada was at the center of the political universe. Before the last Democratic caucus here, someone tried to pull a Trump on then-frontrunner Bernie Sanders, with the infamous “people familiar with the matter” surfacing just before the vote to tell the New York Times “Russia has been trying to intervene” to help the Vermont socialist. The dirty trick didn’t work, as Sanders doubled up establishment rivals, earning 40.5% of the popular vote, to Biden’s 18.9% and Pete Buttigieg’s 17.3%, respectively. The insurgent populist challenger looked like a betting favorite to cruise to the nomination in that last fleeting moment of electoral normalcy.

Weeks later, a free-falling Biden was the beneficiary of another back-room deal, rumored to have been brokered by Barack Obama, in which Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar dropped out, consolidating inside-track votes behind Biden. Since that moment, very little has been predictable or logical about American politics. Here in Las Vegas, we had two largely symbolic elections, a mostly predetermined delivery of 26 real delegates, and eventually, a party. If we’re celebrating anything, it’s likely our passage to the unknown. It’s only going to get stranger from here.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.