Former President Donald Trump cemented his dominance in Nevada with a commanding victory in Thursday night’s caucuses following a symbolic win in Tuesday’s primary.
The race was called for Trump at 8:05 p.m. – 35 minutes after the caucuses wrapped up – with under 1 percent of the vote reported.
Trump was ahead with over 97 percent of the vote.
Trump was delighted as he made his way to Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon on the heels of Supreme Court oral arguments where both conservative and liberal justices expressed skepticism over state efforts to keep the ex-president off the 2024 ballot.
He spent the entire day ahead of Nevada’s caucuses reacting to the oral arguments, as well as a blockbuster Justice Department report essentially deeming President Joe Biden too feeble to charge with a crime in the classified documents case.
Donald Trump posted an image from his private plane when taking off for Nevada’s caucuses on Thursday after holding a press conference in Mar-a-Lago on the damming DOJ report on President Joe Biden’s diminishing memory
Nevada voters line-up at a middle school in Las Vegas, Nevada to caucus on Thursday
Trump headed to Treasure Island Casino & Resort for his caucus night party after landing in Las Vegas.
Trump’s remaining competitor, former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley, was not on the caucus ballot after refusing to spend the $55,000 to participate and claiming the primary contest was ‘rigged’ by MAGA-aligned Nevada Republicans.
But longshot Republican 2024 hopeful and Texas-based businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley was a caucus competitor.
The DOJ revealed in the Thursday report it would not be pursuing charges against Biden because he would likely present himself to a jury ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’.
This renewed calls from Haley demanding the president take a mental competency test to prove he is fit to continue serving as chief executive.
DOJ noted in its report that Biden forgot on different occasions throughout the interview the years when he began and ended his vice presidential terms – and didn’t remember what 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 lamented in a Truth Social pot on Thursday. ‘I was cooperative with the Investigators. Crooked Joe Biden didn’t – Just the opposite, following the usual, corrupt Democrat Playbook. He ‘willfully retained’ documents. This is Scam Justice.’
Several hours before Nevada’s yielded its results, Trump also clinched a victory in the third primary contest of the cycle in the U.S. Virginia Islands caucuses.
He earned 73.9 percent of the vote to Haley’s 26 percent – and is expected to take all delegates available from the islands.
‘Great news!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. ‘As we are landing in Nevada, getting ready to go to Caucus, word just came that we overwhelmingly won the Virgin Islands Caucus, ALL Delegates, with almost 75% of the Vote.’
‘This has been a very Big Day for your Favorite President, the Republican Party, and Democracy!’ he noted, likely reference not only his win, but the DOJ report and 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 went blue in 2016 and 2020, but Arizona was a red state that flipped blue in 2020, and that Trump and Biden see as a priority to clinch the White House in 2024.
Nevada voters wait in line to enter a caucus site at Spanish Springs Elementary School in Sparks, Nevada on Thursday, February 8 after the primary election on Tuesday where Nikki Haley lost to ‘none of these candidates’
Trump held his caucus night party at Treasure Island Hotel & Casino – seen peaking out as the former president’s famous golden Trump Tower Hotel looms over the Las Vegas Strip
While Tuesday’s primary election was only symbolic after the Nevada GOP decided all the delegates would be awarded in the caucuses on Thursday, Trump still was the biggest winner that night.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley came in second place in the primary behind the option ‘none of these candidates,’ which offered voters a chance to cast their ballot for no one – an effort led by Trump Senior Advisor Kash Patel.
The stunning defeat of Haley proves that Trump supporters are so enthusiastic and mobilized that they were willing to show up twice to symbolically and then actually cast their ballots for the former president.
‘Lined up at the South Reno Caucus to vote for President Trump,’ Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt wrote in a post to X, formerly Twitter, along with a video of a massive line of people waiting to get into the caucus site.
‘There is snow on the ground, it is a cold night, and people walked for miles to wait in line for an hour or more,’ he noted. ‘Trump is the only person they can vote for, but they want to make their voices heard. Great sign!’
Trump only participated in the caucuses after the GOP said any candidates who signed up for the primary were barred from the contest two days later.
