Donald Trump wasn’t even on Nevada’s primary ballot & Nikki Haley still lost

Nevada held both its Republican caucus and primary election this week, yielding strange results. In the caucus, Donald Trump beat a little-known Texas pastor named Ryan Binkley. In the primary, Trump wasn’t on the ballot, and yet a majority of voters chose “none of these candidates” over former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley — “none of these candidates” won 63.4% of the votes, and Haley won 30.4%.

Republican opposition to a confusing state law caused the state Republican Party to hold its primary on February 6 and its caucus on February 8. The party decided that anyone who ran in the primary couldn’t participate in the caucus and that only its caucus would award delegates to nominate the caucus winner at the Republican National Convention in mid-July.

Related:

Nikki Haley’s refusal to acknowledge America’s racism is exactly why schools need to teach about it

We don’t need any more miseducated and morally questionable residents of our great nation.

Haley claimed the state GOP wanted her campaign to pay $55,000 to participate in the caucus, so she refused, opting for the primary instead. As such, she didn’t appear on the caucus ballot, and Trump won all 26 of the state’s Republican delegates.

Your LGBTQ+ guide to Election 2024

Stay ahead of the 2024 Election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Despite choosing to participate in the primary, Haley’s campaign invested little attention in Nevada, looking ahead instead to the upcoming South Carolina on February 24. She has repeatedly said that Nevada “rigged” its contest for Trump as he remains widely popular in the state and maintains close relationships with Republican election officials there, according to PBS News Hour.

Despite this, she still suffered a humiliating loss in the primary, as state voters chose to protest her non-participation in the caucus by choosing “none of these candidates” in the primary. As a result, she became the first presidential candidate from either party to lose to “none of these candidates” since that option was introduced in Nevada in 1975, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, in the caucus, Trump beat Binkley, winning 99.2% of the vote over Binkely’s 0.8% margin. Binkley, who is CEO of the Generational Equity Group and a pastor of Create Church (a church that opposes same-sex marriage and once compared homosexuality to “immoral acts” like incest and animal rape), has been self-funding his campaign. Even though he claims that God told him to run, he hasn’t achieved the polling or fundraising thresholds to appear in any of the Republican debates. At two recent rallies, only four people showed up, and his campaign has leaned into his obscurity with promotional yard signs that say “Who is Ryan Binkley?”

Leading into the South Carolina primary at the end of the month, Trump is expected to beat Haley there, even though Haley used to be the state’s governor. State polling currently shows 65.3% of expected Republican voters supporting Trump and only 31.8% supporting Haley. Though Haley has said she will continue to campaign until Super Tuesday on March 5, when 16 states hold their primary elections, she is polling behind Trump in all of those states, leaving her with no real pathway to win the Republican nomination.