Republican 2024 presidential contest takes bizarre turn with dueling Nevada caucus and Nevada primary

| 3:00 pm EDT October 13, 2023
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If you want to understand how badly the mechanics of the Republican Party are falling apart these days, all you have to do is look at the fact that Trump – nominally the Republican “frontrunner” until his criminal trials finish him off – keeps boycotting the party’s presidential primary debates. But it turns out the problem is much more systemic than the ongoing antics of a fading Trump.

According to a local newspaper in the state, Mike Pence has now dropped out of the Nevada caucus, which is being run by the Republican Party, and will instead participate in the Nevada primary, which is being run by the state. Wait, what? This is the kind of thing you have to read three times to make sure you’re not just seeing things.

Pence is arguing that the Nevada caucus rules have been unfairly set up by the Republican Party to make sure Trump wins. So he’s bailing on it, and doesn’t care that he’ll lose out on any possible delegates, so he can instead run in a separate contest which he might “win” on account of the fact that Trump isn’t running in the Nevada primary.

The Republican Party is now in such disarray that presidential candidates are dropping out of the party’s caucuses so they can run in alternate contests that will allow them to claim they won the state. More to the point, Trump and Pence (or whoever wins the Nevada primary) are now both going to come out of Nevada claiming that they won the state.

This is a complete joke. If the Republican Party and the Republican National Committee were still functioning on any level, they’d be stepping in and putting a stop to this kind of absurdity. Instead the Republican Party is setting itself up to where multiple candidates are going to be claiming they won a given state, which will almost certainly make for an ugly floor fight at the convention. And this is before getting to the part where the current Republican “frontrunner” will be a convicted criminal headed for prison by then. Good luck!