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Donald Trump trounced his rivals in the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday, notching his third consecutive victory and giving the Manhattan mogul even more momentum heading into Super Tuesday next week, when voters in a dozen states will cast their ballots.
Trump’s decisive win, which the Associated Press announced immediately after polls closed, was propelled by an electorate even more enraged than the ones that had swept him to wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and a second-place showing in Iowa.
For the first time in the 2016 primary season, media entrance polls showed that a majority of voters, 57 percent of Nevada caucus-goers, said they were "angry" with the federal government. Another 36 percent said they were dissatisfied.
And, as significantly, they want to bring in an outsider to fix it. More than three in five caucus-goers said they favor someone from outside the political establishment rather than a candidate with political experience as president.
That was bad news for Marco Rubio, who is now 0 for 4 in the February contests, and Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses but finished a disappointing third in South Carolina on Saturday.
Those two senators continued to vie for second place — and for the crucial mantle of the best candidate to eventually take down Trump.
But they face a political calendar that now plays even more to Trump’s strengths: massive made-for-TV rallies and free national media coverage, with a dozen states voting in only seven days.
Early reports on the ground showed long lines and turnout trending higher than expected — and, at times, disorganization and confusion about the caucus rules. There were reports of ballots running low, caucus workers in campaign gear and even double-voting.
However, the Nevada Republican Party tweeted at 10:20 p.m., "There have been no official reports of voting irregularities or violations."
In a sign of the vote’s importance, Trump himself attended a caucus in Las Vegas to garner support, arriving at the same site as radio host Glenn Beck, who appeared on behalf of Cruz.
The 2016 Republican campaign has set turnout records in the first three states but Nevada has had poor showings the last two cycles. In 2012, only 33,000 Republicans showed up to caucus in Nevada, which was down from 44,000 four years before that.
Caucuses are notoriously difficult to poll and predict, especially in states like Nevada without a long history, but Trump led public surveys handily.
Still, Trump, who lost the Iowa caucuses despite leading in most public polls ahead of the vote, entered Nevada warily.
“The caucus system is dangerous, to use a very nice word,” Trump said in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on the eve of the election. "It’s sort of a dangerous system.”
Low turnout puts a particular premium on early organizing, in which both Rubio and Cruz quietly invested. Cruz had the backing of the state’s Republican attorney general, Adam Laxalt, and has appealed to Nevada’s rural voters with a television ad highlighting his opposition to the fact that the federal government controls 85 percent of the state’s land. (John Kasich targeted the same issue in TV ads, as well.)
Rubio, meanwhile, tried to connect with Nevada voters from his time living there as a child in the late 1970s and early 1980s, telling audiences about how his father worked as a bartender at Sam's Town and his mother as a maid at the Imperial Palace. (He still has numerous cousinsin the state.) Rubio’s family’s dabbled with Mormonism during those years and Rubio hopes an active Mormon political network that lifted Mitt Romney to a landslide win, with 50 percent of the vote, turns out for him.
Stumping in rural Nevada on caucus day, Trump continued to boast of his strong poll numbers in states coming up on the voting calendar, including Cruz's home state of Texas. He warned supporters to be wary of “dishonest stuff” from Cruz, whom he dubbed a "baby" and a "liar."
And Trump issued a warning shot to Rubio to beware taking him on: The two have largely avoided tangling but that could change if Rubio builds on his second-place finish in South Carolina on Saturday.
“When he hits me, ugh, is he gonna be hit,” Trump said. “Actually, I can’t wait."
During a rally in Las Vegas Tuesday, Rubio alluded to Trump several times but didn't attack him head on. The Florida senator emphasized that while voters have a right to be angry, the election has to be about more than that.
“Frustration’s not a plan. Being angry’s not a plan,” Rubio said. "So this election can’t just be about making a point. It can’t just be about electing the loudest person in the room because that alone will not solve the problem.”
Rubio has received a rash of endorsements since Jeb Bush dropped out of the race on Saturday night, including from Sen. Dean Heller, who is Mormon, and Rep. Mark Amodei.
Cruz’s campaign, meanwhile, mocked Rubio’s status as the favored son of the GOP establishment, and for his inability to win a state. Early in the cycle, South Carolina and Nevada had been targeted as potential Rubio wins, but Trump’s dominance has proved too thorough.
"Rubio’s stated strategy is to lose the first four primary states, lose every state on Super Tuesday, then lose every state on March 5, then lose every state on March 8, and then finally win in Florida (where he's currently polling third, behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz),” Jason Johnson, Cruz’s top strategist, wrote in a memo this week.
Despite being one of only four states to vote in February, Nevada has gotten short shrift this cycle, especially on the GOP side, coming just three days after the highly competitive South Carolina primary and only a week before Super Tuesday, when a dozen states with far more delegates at stake will vote.
Ben Carson and Kasich were widely expected to finish at the bottom of the field.
Nolan D. McCaskill contributed to this report.
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