The 2024 Nevada Republican presidential primary and caucus will be held on February 6 and February 8, 2024, as part of the Republican Party primaries for the 2024 presidential election. 26 delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention will be allocated on a proportional basis. They will be held following the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
On August 14, 2023, Republicans in Nevada announced that they will boycott and ignore the state-organized primary following a controversy over the selection of a primary process over the traditional caucus format in the state's presidential preference contests. The state-run primary is scheduled to be held for February 6, while the Nevada Republican Party will hold its own caucus on February 8.
Background
In 2012, a report by Reuters described the Republican electorate in Nevada as "libertarian-minded". Eric Herzik, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno, argued that Republican voters in the state are more animated by fiscal issues than social conservatism.
2016 caucus
Donald Trump won the 2016 Nevada caucus with 45.9% of the vote and 14 out of 30 pledged delegates, with closest opponents Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz taking 23.9% and 21.4% of the vote, respectively. During the campaign, both Rubio and Cruz vied for the support of Mormons in Nevada, who form an influential bloc within the state party.
Controversy
After the 2020 presidential election, the state of Nevada decided to establish a presidential primary for both parties. Previously, party-organized caucuses were used to determine delegates in presidential elections. In May 2023, the Republican Party sued the state of Nevada, because they preferred to keep using the caucuses to determine their delegate allocation. The Republican primary can only be held if more than one Republican candidate filed until October 16, 2023. Nevada Republicans have said that they will hold a party-organized caucus on February 8, 2024 instead. To participate in the caucus, Republican candidates need to register their candidacy with the Nevada Republican Party in a filing window from September 1, 2023 to October 15, 2023.
Procedure
Delegates are proportionally allocated to candidates who receive at least 3.85% of the total statewide vote.
Candidates
The filing deadline for the Nevada primary was on October 16, 2023, and the office of the Secretary of State of Nevada published the list of qualified candidates on October 20. Additionally, the filing window for the Nevada caucus was between September 1 and October 15. The party published their own list of candidates and did not allow those who filed for the state-run primary to participate.
Primary candidates
John Anthony Castro
Heath V. Fulkerson
Nikki Haley
Donald Kjornes
Mike Pence
Tim Scott
Hirsh V. Singh
Caucus candidates
Ryan Binkley
Doug Burgum
Chris Christie
Ron DeSantis
Vivek Ramaswamy
Donald Trump
Campaign
In March 2023, it was reported that Trump hosted a range of Nevada Republican Party officials at Mar-a-Lago as part of his campaign's "aggressive outreach to state and local party officials in the early primary states."