Varlin Higbee, the Lincoln County, Nevada, commission chair, was denied entry to a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Las Vegas last month, despite holding a VIP invitation from the Trump campaign. The reason? Higbee had previously endorsed one of Trump’s Republican primary rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“They asked, ‘Did you endorse DeSantis?’” Higbee recounted to CNN. “And I replied, ‘I certainly did, and this situation is exactly why.’”
This incident has sparked concern among some Nevada Republicans, who believe that the state party’s unwavering loyalty to Trump could potentially alienate the voters needed to secure victory in this crucial general election battleground. Trump narrowly lost Nevada in both the 2016 and 2020 elections by approximately 2.5 percentage points.
TK Crabb, the former political director of the Clark County Republican Party and a strategist for candidates, criticized the state party’s current leadership. “It’s become more about personalities than it has about winning,” she said. Crabb, who was also initially barred from the Vegas rally but was eventually allowed in with the help of a friend, added that she doesn’t intend to vote for Trump.
Trump’s dominance over the Nevada Republican Party was evident this week when he won the state’s caucuses and all of its delegates on Thursday night, running essentially unopposed. His remaining opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, chose to participate in the state-run Republican primary held two days prior – a move orchestrated by Trump loyalists in the state GOP.
Haley accused Trump of “rigging” the state’s nominating contest after she came in a distant second place in the primary to “none of these candidates.” Trump allies, including the state’s Republican Gov. Joe Lambardo, who endorsed the former president last month, had pushed for this move. “We always knew Nevada was a scam,” Haley said when asked about the results.
Michael McDonald, Nevada Republican Party Chairman, did not respond to a call and text message seeking comment. However, McDonald has not hidden his loyalty to Trump. “We will deliver 100% of delegates of the state of Nevada to Donald J. Trump,” McDonald declared at Trump’s Las Vegas rally.
McDonald and Clark County Chairman Jesse Law are among the six so-called “fake electors” indicted over their alleged involvement in a scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election for Trump. They have pleaded not guilty to felony charges brought against them by Nevada’s attorney general in December.
The refusal by these leading Republicans to accept the 2020 election results – and the expectation that the candidates they nominate will not as well – has already factored into several statewide races. In one high-profile example, Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt echoed many of their debunked arguments about voter fraud and was criticized for it on the airwaves in the final weeks before the 2022 midterm election. Laxalt narrowly lost to incumbent US Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, widely seen as the most vulnerable Democrat up for election that year. His defeat cost the GOP a seat critical to the party’s efforts to flip the upper chamber in their favor.
“It’s almost like they don’t want to win,” said Amy Tarkanian, a former Republican state party chair. “They’d rather have a party full of purists.”
Despite these concerns, some indicators suggest favorable conditions for Trump and Republicans this cycle. Nevada ended 2023 with the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states at 5.4%. “Trump is the favorite in Nevada. The polling shows it. I’d rather be him than Biden,” said Jeremy Hughes, a Republican strategist who has worked extensively in the Silver State.
However, Tarkanian pointed out that the fastest growing group of voters is not Democrats and Republicans but people who registered “non-partisan,” which has ballooned in the years since the state adopted automatic voter registration. In 2020, one in four voters registered as non-partisans; now, it’s nearly one in three.
This year, Nevada voters will also consider a referendum on whether to strengthen abortion access in the state constitution. Abortion access has loomed large in several statewide contests there in recent cycles, to Democrats’ advantage. Given these headwinds, Tarkanian said the state party can’t afford to alienate fellow Republicans.
As for Higbee, he said he intends to vote for Trump, but he believes the Nevada GOP is poorly serving the former president. “When you ostracize 60% of your republican voters because you call them ‘RINOs’ and ‘Never Trumpers,’ they’re not going to vote,” he said. “If anybody is to blame for that, it’s Mr. McDonald.”