There was also a Democratic primary on Tuesday that President Joe Biden won handily against author Marianne Williamson and a handful of lesser-known rivals. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota was not on the ballot.
Haley's campaign refused to pay the $55,000 ($84,000) fee that the Nevada Republican Party charged candidates to participate in the caucuses.
Nikki Haley speaks while standing with New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (left) and retired US Army Brigadier General Donald Bolduc near a polling place in Hampton, New Hampshire.credit: AP
“We haven't spent a dime or an ounce of our energy on Nevada. “We made the decision early on that we would not pay $55,000 to a Trump entity to participate in an operation that was rigged to benefit Trump,” Betsy Ankeny, Haley’s campaign manager, told reporters. “Nevada is not and has never been the focus of our attention.”
Nevada politicians added “neither of these candidates” as an option in all statewide races as a way for voters after the Watergate scandal to participate but also to express dissatisfaction with their choices. Nobody can win elected office, but he came in first place in the 1976 and 1978 congressional primaries. He also finished ahead of both George Bush and Edward Kennedy in the 1980 Nevada presidential primary.
Thursday's caucuses are the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the Republican Party's presidential nomination. But they were seen as particularly leaning in Trump's favor because of the intense public support they needed from the candidates and the party's new rules in the state that benefited him more.
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Trump is expected to easily win the caucuses, which would give him all of the state's 26 delegates. Delegates are party members, activists, and elected officials who vote at the national party conventions to officially choose the party's nominee.
“If your goal is to win the Republican nomination for president, you have to go where the delegates are. It baffles me that Nikki Haley chose not to participate,” Chris Lacivita, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said in an interview before the primary.
Nevada, the third state in the field after Iowa and New Hampshire, is set to hold state-run primaries instead of caucuses after Democrats who control the Legislature changed the law in an attempt to boost participation.
Caucuses typically require voters to show up for an in-person meeting on a certain day or time, while elections can offer greater flexibility for participation, with polls open for most of the day on Election Day, along with absentee or early voting.
But Nevada Republicans chose to hold caucuses instead, saying they wanted certain rules in place, such as requiring participants to show government-issued identification.
The caucuses require a candidate to organize his supporters extensively across the state in order to be competitive, a feat that Trump, the former president and front-runner, was easily positioned to accomplish.
The Nevada Republican Party has also restricted the participation of super PACs like the one Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was counting on to boost his now-suspended campaign. The party banned candidates from appearing on the primary ballot and at the caucuses.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott also registered to compete in the Nevada primaries instead of the caucuses before ending their presidential campaigns.
