LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — With less than a month to go before the presidential preference primary in Nevada, and ballots showing up in mailboxes, confusion reigns over how Republicans are supposed to make their choice in the race.
That’s because for Republicans, there are essentially two elections.
The first, a state-run primary election held on Feb. 6, will see all active registered Democratic and Republican voters get a mail-in ballot. In that election, you can vote early, by mail or on Election Day.
The second is private caucus, run by the Nevada Republican Party, and held on Feb. 8. To vote in that contest, you have to attend a local precinct meeting starting at 5 p.m.
Under rules issued by the state Republican Party, however, candidates who decided to file for the state-run primary were prohibited from also participating in the party-run caucus.
That’s why Republican voters who are receiving their mail ballots are only seeing the names of candidates such as former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, ex-Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on their ballots.
Candidates such as former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie instead chose to participate in the caucus. Candidates had to pay a $55,000 fee to get into the caucus, money that will be used to defray the cost of the event.
So why would a candidate choose the caucus over the primary? Because the caucus results will ultimately award Nevada’s 26 delegates to the national convention in mid-July. Candidates will be awarded delegates based on their percentage of the vote totals.
But why would the state party go to the trouble of holding a caucus at all, when the state was already paying for a primary election that would have cost the party nothing?
Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald said it came down to election security. The state does not check voter identification in the primary, in addition to allowing same-day registration and mail-in voting. Republicans, McDonald said, don’t trust that process.
“This is an issue we’re hoping that the Secretary of State takes a look at, and the rest of our electorate, to say, look, we have to have some type of voter ID. We’d like to have an Election Day, not election week, not election month,” McDonald said. “It’s not a show of protest. It’s a show of how it could be done and should be done so it’s fair and open.”
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Unlike the primary, caucus-goers will have had to be registered Republicans for at least 30 days before the Feb. 8 event. They will also have to present identification before they are given a ballot. Unlike previous Democratic caucuses in Nevada, Republicans can cast their ballot and leave, without having to discuss candidates and issues with their neighbors.
“Any caucus is about grassroots,” McDonald said. “That’s when everybody says you can cheat a caucus. You can never rig a caucus. The campaigns own it. You’ve got to get out. You have to campaign. You’re right in front of the voters.”
But political consultant Chuck Muth, a former chairman of the Clark County Republican Party who served as an executive of the state party, said the decision to hold a separate caucus will cause confusion, depress turnout and lead to an erosion of confidence in elections.
“The [state Republican] party is telling people you can’t trust the presidential preference primary because you’ve got same-day registration, mail-in ballots and that sort of thing,” Muth said. “Yet, they’re still going to use that exact same process for the primaries in June. So you can’t use it for the presidential primary but it is OK to use it for U.S. Senate, Congress, legislative races? The hypocrisy is so thick you can’t even cut it with a chain saw.”
Instead, Muth said, the party should have participated in the primary and used it to fine-tune its operations for elections later this year.
“If the party had been smart, they would have embraced the presidential primary,” Muth said. “They want voters to vote early. They have to figure out a way to get them to vote early. They want them to ballot harvest. They have to figure out how to do it. They should have used the presidential preference primary like a preseason game.”
“Ballot harvesting” refers to the practice of a person who is not related to a voter picking up their ballots and delivering them to the county elections office.
Another issue? The perception that McDonald – a longtime associate of Trump’s – has engineered the caucus so that Trump would have an advantage because of his organization in Nevada. As a result, Muth said, candidates have not made visits to the state the way they did in 2016, the last year there was no incumbent running for re-election.
“The candidates have known for months that this was coming,” Muth said. “And they believe, because they know how close the Nevada Republican Party chairman is to Donald Trump, real or not, the perception is, the caucus is rigged for Donald Trump. And that perception is, well, why bother going to Nevada. We’re way out west anyway. It’s very inconvenient to come out here.”
In December, McDonald appeared to endorse Trump while introducing him at a rally in Reno.
“February 8th. Mark your calendars. That’s the day you show up to caucus for Donald J. Trump,” McDonald said at the rally. “You come out to your location. You walk in with your neighbors. You sit with your neighbors and tell them how great Donald Trump is. And then, you cast your ballot for Donald J. Trump.”
McDonald doesn’t shy away from his relationship with Trump, but says he’s worked with other candidates who filed to be in the caucus, including Christie, Trump’s most vociferous critic on the campaign trail. Christie dropped out of the race on Jan. 10.
“As far as being friends with the president, it’s no different than me being friends with [Gov. Joe] Lombardo,” said McDonald, who endorsed the governor during the 2022 primary, although the party’s central committee backed another candidate. “I will do whatever I can for anybody to get a Republican elected, anybody that wants to work with us, and that’s what we did.”
Asked if he will cast his caucus vote for Trump, McDonald acknowledged he would.
“Michael McDonald? Not Chairman McDonald. Michael McDonald, yes. Absolutely. He is a friend of mine. I’m not going to deny it,” McDonald said. “I have a relationship with the man but I never hid that. But in the same respect, I’ve always made every contest here in the state of Nevada fair for anybody who wants to run.”
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