Trump shows his muscle in Nevada and sweeps an unrivaled caucus

-”Three damn hours to vote, three!…”

The screaming man throws open the cafeteria doors at Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nevada. On the other side of the threshold is a scene in which confusion reigns. Lines that go nowhere, people who can't find voting stations, people giving away ballots as if they were propaganda flyers. This is what the elections organized by Donald Trump's supporters look like.

– “Damn, I thought the Republicans knew how to organize elections,” said a man who couldn't find anyone to give him information about his census registration.

Trump swept the caucus of Nevada with 90% of the votes. When the count is completed, he will add the State's 26 delegates (more than those obtained in Iowa or New Hampshire). The Associated Press agency declared the former president's overwhelming victory when hundreds of his supporters were still waiting in long lines to participate. The caucus They were only open for two hours, from five to seven in the afternoon.

The controversial politician competed alone in an internal process in which three names appeared on the ballot. His, that of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who threw in the towel last month, and that of Ryan Binkley, a pastor from Texas who has dared to confront the strong man of the party in one of his most solid bastions in the West. Binkley had less than 2% of the vote on the first count.

“Let's face it, all these people who are formed are going to vote for Trump,” says Linda Guglia. This 45-year-old real estate broker, a first-generation American of Austrian and Irish origins, voted in 2020 for Joe Biden. “It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life,” confesses Guglia, who intends to correct her record in the November general elections. She says Democrats are obsessed with abortion, but what voters like her really worry about are the economy and immigration.

Linda was lucky. At the voting center she met Gareth, one of her classmates at the Christian church she attends. The man did not hide his fervor for another of his earthly idols. He wore a white cap that said Team Trump Captain in big gold letters. On his chest he proudly carried a picture that said “Caucuses in favor of Trump on February 8.”

These representatives of the Trump campaign acted as election observers this Thursday. Some gave the ballots to the voters and guided them to their corresponding table to place the ballot in a tiny cardboard box. “It's been confusing because we didn't expect such a high turnout, but the point of this is to have an election with integrity,” says Gareth.

The chaos was not exclusive to the institute. Seven kilometers south of there, at the exclusive Dragonridge private club, the scene was similar. Trump supporters waited patiently for up to two hours to get to their tables and cast their votes, an action that took 15 seconds. The press was expelled from the place by the owner of the place, businessman Rich MacDonald, a millionaire developer who is also the treasurer of the Republican Party in the State.

The shadow of suspicion that Trumpism has cast over election institutions and officials caused the Nevada Republican Party to hold a few caucus in parallel to the primaries, which took place on Tuesday and were organized by the state government. This Thursday's process shows the voting restrictions that party members want to impose in the States. Voting by mail has been prohibited, except for a handful of military personnel who will be able to vote absentee. Only those who registered as Republicans before January 9 could participate in person. Primaries, in contrast, offer more flexibility, allowing registration on the day of the elections.

The ballots are paper and the counting should be done, in theory, live at the precincts to avoid moving the ballots to another location. The caucus They intend to make transparent a process that Nikki Haley herself, Trump's only standing rival, considers fraudulent. “We have not spent a penny or an ounce of energy in Nevada. We decided a long time ago that we were not going to give $55,000 to a Trump entity to participate in a process that is rigged for him to win,” Betsy Ankney, Haley's campaign manager, said Monday.

Haley suffered an embarrassing defeat in Tuesday's primary. She could not prevail in an election in which Trump did not appear and in whose ballot ghosts of the Republican race still appeared, such as Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott. The candidate came in second place with 22,000 votes, behind “none of the previous candidates” (47,000 votes). 60% of ballots were marked with this option, compared to 33% who opted for Haley. The former governor of South Carolina was surpassed in seven counties and in the most populated areas of the State, the cities of Reno and Las Vegas. “Humiliating, embarrassing and overwhelming,” were some of the adjectives the Trump campaign used to describe Haley's role.

“None of the previous candidates” were, in fact, Trump. The former president avoided Tuesday's primaries, a process organized by the state government and launched by the previous governor of Nevada, Democrat Steve Sisolak. In 2020, Joe Lombardo, a Republican, won the state. The local president announced on Tuesday that he would check the “none” box and this Thursday he supported Trump.

Trump supporters spent their time in the long lines taunting Haley. “This is not New Hampshire!” joked a man in one of the precincts. The conservative politician's campaign, however, focused on achieving high participation to surpass the votes that Haley obtained on Tuesday and avoid showing weakness towards the South Carolina elections, which will take place on February 24.

“She doesn't realize how ridiculous she is. His brain at this point is as good as Biden's. She hasn't realized that the competition is already over,” said Mike Shamamian, a 77-year-old retiree who was reading a book about Ava Gardner. The man claims that he voted for the Democratic Party from 1968 to 2016, when he supported and even helped raise money for Bernie Sanders. He is now sure that Donald Trump will be president again. “Democrats are only interested in money. “They hate Trump because he already has money, but he only wants to do good things,” he says.

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