Nikki Haley’s Nevada primary strategy risks ‘major confusion’

Nevada’s unprecedented system for selecting the Republican nominee for president is setting up a stumbling block for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

For the first time, the Silver State is holding both a government-run primary election on Feb. 6 and a caucus two days later, run by the Nevada Republican Party.

Haley is the only major GOP candidate signed up for the primary ballot, meaning she will likely win – but receive no delegates.

The confusing process sprung from objections by the Nevada Republican Party to a 2021 state law that made a primary election mandatory. Party officials responded by forcing candidates to choose between registering for the primary and caucus, and will only award delegates to the winner of the latter contest.

Haley elected to participate in the primary back in October, joined by former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) – both of whom have since dropped out of the race.

The remaining contenders — former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, biotech mogul Vivek Ramaswamy and businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley — are all participating in the caucus, with 26 delegates to the Republican National Convention at stake.

Haley’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request from The Post for comment on their strategy.

How Nevada’s dual contest came about

Since the 1984 presidential election cycle, Nevada Republicans and Democrats — with the exception of 1996 on the GOP side — have held Iowa-style caucuses, in which voters meet at set locations and elect delegates to county conventions. Those delegates then elect delegates to state conventions to determine who receives Nevada’s delegates to the national party convention.

After the 2020 election, Nevada’s Democrat-controlled government decided to switch to holding a primary if more than one candidate registered for the ballot — over the objections of the state GOP, which has argued caucusing is a more transparent process.

Nevada Republicans sued over the primary requirement, and the courts allowed the state party to restrict the awarding of delegates to the caucus.

The Nevada GOP’s stance has drawn ire from anti-Trump factions of the party, who note the former president has strong relationships with Republican officials across the state and is heavily favored among likely caucusgoers.

The 2024 Nevada contests will result in “major confusion” for voters and will inspire more anger than during the usual caucus process, Las Vegas-based GOP political strategist Zachary Moyle told The Post.

“This year, voters are going to think the primary is like any other election,” he predicted. “They’re going to be very confused when they go to the primary and they want to vote for someone other than Nikki Haley, and they’re not there.”

Haley’s strategy

Nevada is third in the Republican nominating calendar behind Iowa and New Hampshire — where Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, has been rising in the polls but remains at best in a distant second behind Trump. It also comes two-and-a-half weeks before the primary in South Carolina, Haley’s home state that her campaign has said she expects to win — but where Trump again holds a sizable polling lead.

Competing in Nevada’s primary could provide Haley a symbolic victory and generate headlines, but would not give her any actual playing power at the GOP convention and could give her rivals a chance at earning delegates.

Opting for the primary also allows Haley to forgo the mandatory $55,000 price tag to compete in the caucus.

“Nikki Haley can get a ton of press out of this and they will be able to say they won the presidential preference primary,” Moyle said. “Maybe that helps with donors. It could help with finances, it could help with notoriety.”

South Carolina-based GOP strategist Dave Wilson suggested that Haley’s strategy to “win” Nevada’s primary is a way to show Palmetto State voters that she has a shot against Trump.

“Nikki Haley winning anything in Nevada is going to be extremely important for her if she wants to continue to build momentum and get traction. She will get media attention off of this and will most likely say, ‘The voters have spoken,’” he said.

“That gives her a launch point to go back to South Carolina, back into home territory and a similar primary system,” added Wilson, noting that Haley is likely only sacrificing a few delegates, which Nevada awards based on caucus vote share rather than through a winner-take-all system.

How other candidates are handling Nevada

Despite its early place in the voting cycle, Nevada has barely received any attention from any of the candidates, who have focused their time and energy on Iowa and New Hampshire.

Trump, 77, held a “commit to caucus” rally in Reno on Sunday, and has previously hosted Nevada GOP officials at Mar-a-Lago.

DeSantis, 45, has accused Nevada’s GOP of tilting the system in favor of Trump, but has defended his decision to participate in the caucus.

“The state party changed it to a caucus. The state party people are basically trying to rig it for Trump. And so the delegates are going to be done on the caucus,” DeSantis told Iowa reporters on Wednesday, adding that Haley’s strategy “is not really to win” because she’s taken herself out of the running for delegates.

Never Back Down, the super PAC backing DeSantis, ended their door knocking campaign in Nevada back in August to focus on Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Haley held a Nevada town hall in March and attended the Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas in late October — along with the other major candidates — but has mostly focused on the other three early states.