Billionaire real estate investor and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump easily swept the Nevada Republican caucuses on Tuesday.
The Nevada win showed that Trump can prevail in caucuses, where organization is key to turning out voters who are willing to spend hours engaged in the caucus process. Until now, Trump has only won in states that held primaries, but he lost to Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) in the caucus format in Iowa.
Trump's victory raises serious questions about whether any of his Republican rivals can catch up to his lead in delegates, or match his momentum going into the Super Tuesday contest on March 1, when 13 states across the country will vote in nine primaries and four caucuses in 24 hours.
He spent the day crisscrossing the Silver State, held a rally in Sparks at midday, and hosted a watch party in Las Vegas Tuesday night.
By the time the results came in, supporters had gathered in the cavernous ballroom at the Treasure Island casino, hoping to celebrate with a candidate who represents the flash and glitter that many people associate with Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas, Trump has been locked in a battle with a powerful local labor union over attempts to organize workers at the 64-story Trump International Hotel Las Vegas.
Trump's biggest support Tuesday came from the northern and western part of the state, where rural communities value small government, gun rights and traditional values.
Western Nevada is home to people who consider the rancher Cliven Bundy a folk hero, after he led an armed standoff against federal government agents in 2014. Bundy was taken into custody in Oregon earlier this year.
Polling in Nevada is notoriously unreliable, but what data there is showed Trump ahead of both Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) by at least 20 percentage points going into Tuesday's contest.
Coming off his win in Nevada, Trump will hold rallies across the South later this week, hitting Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.
He currently holds leads in polling across nearly every one of the Super Tuesday states.
(Huffington Post)
