Haley loses Nevada's GOP primary as Biden wins Democratic contest

Nikki Haley's campaign reacted to her losing the non-binding Nevada GOP primary, with voters instead opting for "none of these candidates" on the ballot.

"Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots the house wins. We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond," Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement to CNN.

The state-mandated contest isn’t officially part of the Republican nominating process and won’t award any delegates. 

Here is a look at where CNN's latest Democratic delegate estimate from Nevada stands:

• President Joe Biden: 36

Total pledged delegates won:

• Biden: 91  

Remember: 1,968 pledged delegates are required to win the Democratic nomination. 

President Joe Biden is marking his primary win in Nevada by warning that the fundamentals of the United States are at stake.

“America was built on an idea — the idea that all women and men are created equal. While we’ve never fully lived up to that idea, we’ve never walked away from it either. But this promise — the very thing that makes America, America — has never been more at risk than it is right now.
"Donald Trump is trying to divide us, not unite us; drag us back to the past, not lead us to the future,” Biden wrote in a statement.
“We must organize, mobilize, and vote. Because one day, when we look back, we’ll be able to say, when American democracy was a risk, [SIC] we saved it — together,” the statement said.

CNN projects that Nikki Haley will lose the non-binding Nevada Republican primary, where Donald Trump did not compete, to “none of these candidates,” an option voters have to express their dissatisfaction with all of the candidates on the ballot.

The state-mandated contest isn’t officially part of the Republican nominating process and won’t award any delegates. 

The state’s delegates will be awarded based on the results of party-run caucuses Thursday, where Trump will be the only major candidate on the ballot.

President Joe Biden will win Nevada's Democratic presidential primary, CNN projects, adding delegates in a state where he faced little opposition.

This win comes just days after he notched his first official victory of the 2024 nominating race in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

Ahead of Tuesday's Nevada primary, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign outlined their reasoning behind participating in the state’s primary election instead of the party-run GOP caucuses on Thursday. 

“We have not spent a dime nor an ounce of energy on Nevada. We aren't going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity to participate in a process that is rigged for Trump. Nevada is not and has never been our focus. I’m truly not sure what the Trump team is up to out there, but they seem pretty spun up about it,” Haley’s campaign manager Betsy Ankney said during a press call on Monday.

More on the dueling GOP contests: While there will be a GOP primary Tuesday, Republicans have chosen to award their delegates via the caucuses, and the dueling contests have caused some confusion among Nevada voters.

Some Republican presidential contenders, including Haley, filed to run in the primary. Former President Donald Trump chose not to appear on the primary ballot, opting instead to appear on the GOP caucus ballot, which effectively guarantees his victory.

Haley has been focusing on her home state of South Carolina ahead of the GOP primary contest on February 24.

After turning several recent trials and court hearings into campaign stops, Donald Trump is not expected to be in the room when the highest court in the land takes up the question of his ballot eligibility, sources familiar with the planning tell CNN.

On Thursday, Trump’s lawyers will appear at the US Supreme Court for arguments over a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to throw Trump off the state’s ballot under the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office. Trump currently doesn’t plan to be there. Instead, he’ll be at Mar-a-Lago in Florida before traveling to a Nevada caucus victory party in Las Vegas.

“There is no upside to him attending these arguments,” one source close to the legal team tells CNN. “Trump understands how serious this is – the stakes could not be higher.”

Trump’s decision not to attend the historic Supreme Court arguments in the case – which would determine his ballot eligibility nationwide – is an indication of how carefully his team is handling the case before the court where Trump appointed one-third of the justices on the bench to create a conservative supermajority.

The arguments come as the Supreme Court is also expected to consider a more perilous legal question for Trump – whether he is immune from criminal prosecution for his actions following the 2020 election. Trump may feel more strongly about attending those arguments, according to another source familiar with his legal strategy.

Read more about the SCOTUS arguments and what is at stake.

Just how does Joe Biden win reelection? National polls show him trailing Donald Trump more often than leading him – a rare position for an incumbent to be in at this point in the campaign.

These national polls, though, mean little. You win elections state by state through the Electoral College. Back in 2020, the closest battleground states (i.e., those decided by 3 points or less) were either around the Great Lakes (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) or along the Sun Belt (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina).

Biden would be reelected if he wins all the states in either region, so long as he also carries the remaining states he took in 2020.

At this point, though, it seems his easiest path to a second term runs through the Great Lakes rather than the Sun Belt.

Look at two Fox News polls released Thursday. Biden and Trump were tied in Wisconsin – a state the president won by less than a point in 2020. In Georgia, another state Biden won by less than a point four years ago, Trump held an 8-point edge.

These Fox News polls are not outliers. Trump hasn’t led (even within the margin of error) in any Wisconsin poll this cycle that meets CNN’s standards for publication. On the other end, he hasn’t trailed in any Georgia poll in well over a year.

Keep reading about Biden's path to reelection.

It is 7 p.m. PT in Nevada (10 p.m. ET) and polls are closing across the state. Here are key things to know about the primaries being held Tuesday:

On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden is on the ballot along with several other candidates, including Marianne Williamson, and the “none of these candidates” option. Rep. Dean Phillips entered the presidential race after the state’s filing deadline, so he won’t be on the ballot. Nevada Democrats will allocate their delegates based on the results of Tuesday’s primary and 36 delegates are at stake.

On the Republican side, a state-run presidential primary is being held, which will not impact the state’s delegate allocation to the Republican National Convention. Those delegates will be awarded based on the results of the party-run caucuses held on Thursday. Twenty-six delegates are at stake in the caucuses.

Donald Trump is the only major GOP candidate on the ballot in the caucuses. His GOP rival Nikki Haley is the only major candidate on the primary ballot Tuesday and there will also be an option for “none of these candidates.” Nevada GOP rules prevented candidates from participating in both contests, but eligible voters can vote in both.

Trump faces no serious opposition to win the state’s 26 delegates in the caucuses.