How Nevada’s Republicans made their primary irrelevant

PARTICIPATING IN Nevada’s Republican primary this year is a bit like playing a choose-your-own-adventure game. Your first choice is between voting in the state-run primary election or the caucus put on by Nevada’s Republican Party. You pick the February 6th primary, since the state has kindly mailed you a ballot. But wait: Donald Trump, your preferred candidate, isn’t listed. Instead you can choose between Nikki Haley, two people who are no longer running and four others you have never heard of. What if you picked the caucus on February 8th? Well, then you can vote for Mr Trump or Ryan Binkley, a pastor from Texas. Fans of Ms Haley are out of luck.How did Nevada end up with duelling Republican primaries? In 2021 the state legislature passed a law replacing the caucuses run by the Democratic and Republican parties with state-run primaries on the first Tuesday of February. The move was intended to boost Nevada’s importance in presidential-primary elections by holding them earlier and making them more representative of the electorate. President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee endorsed the change. Nevada and New Hampshire would vote on the same day, behind only South Carolina.