As Republicans and Democrats ramp up for more primary contests this week, one has everyone biting their nails: The Nevada caucuses are notoriously confusing and poorly run. For campaigns that depend on a good showing in this state, the uncertainty involved is putting everyone on edge.
In 2008, Democrats moved Nevada’s contest up in the primary season in an effort to include a Western state in the early contests. The GOP followed suit for many of the same reasons. However, since gaining its “first in the West” status, Nevada has yet to actually pull off a smoothly-run caucus, and these past failures have made tomorrow’s caucus a wild card.
Historically, Republican caucuses have been poorly organized. County parties and the state party argue constantly about whose responsibility it is to manage the contest. According to Politico, one Republican consultant working with a presidential campaign said, “I think you could make a legitimate claim, if you were the state party that it’s the county party’s responsibility, but at the county, you could say it’s the state’s responsibility. So when it’s no one’s responsibility, it doesn’t get done.”
A history of tension between the Republican establishment and libertarian grassroots activists only exacerbates the leadership conundrum — arguments between the two groups have further complicated the proceedings. In 2008, Ron Paul supporters effectively took control of the Nevada caucus from the state Republican establishment, forcing the state to delay its delegate selection by shouting down party officials. In 2012, libertarians managed to cause a stir again. After the caucus’ results were released, supporters of Ron Paul revolted and refused to back Romney, the winner, and the state party is still recovering from these struggles. This lack of clear leadership has resulted in poor organization, low turnout, and bad record-keeping, obfuscating expectations for tomorrow’s results.
In 2012, only 33,000 Republicans showed up to caucus, approximately 8 percent of eligible voters. Although primaries and caucuses are known for low turnout, this is especially abysmal. Part of this low turnout was due to the uncompetitive nature of the 2008 and 2012 Nevada caucuses for Republicans: Both Senator John McCain and former-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had large leads by the time of the Nevada caucuses and many already saw them as the presumptive nominees. However, a large part of the low turnout was also due to a lack of voter records.
The state party has not done an adequate job keeping records on caucus participants. While seemingly unimportant, these records form the bedrock of political campaigns. Campaigns and state parties use records of who participates in primaries in order to target potential supporters and ensure that those supporters know how the caucuses work. Without those lists, campaigns face significant hurdles to effectively mobilizing voters, contributing greatly to the dismal turnout figures and jeopardizing the presumably democratic process of selecting the nominee.
Unfortunately, in the 2012 Republican caucus no list of participants was generated, serving only to perpetuate the organizational and turnout-related problems from previous years. Furthermore, the Republican Party chose to hold its caucus on a Tuesday evening instead of all-day Saturday, which will inevitably confuse voters and make it more difficult for working voters to participate. As a result, it is difficult to predict which potential voters have both the will and the ability to participate.
This lack of records has had other effects that similarly make predicting the outcome of tomorrow’s contest all the more difficult. Voter lists are used by pollsters to ask likely voters whom they will support. Without a list from 2012, polls in Nevada have been sorely lacking. There has been little to no public polling in 2016, and in 2015 only five polls were released to the public. As a result, political pundits have had to rely on other means to guess the probability of candidates’ victories, and the results from tomorrow’s caucus have the potential to surprise.
But, since there is reason to doubt the ability of the caucus organizers to turn around the results in a timely and effective manner, and we may not know the surprising results for some time. In 2012, it took three days for state officials to release a final tally despite the impressively low turnout.
Altogether, the Nevada caucuses’ history of disorganization and strife make predicting tomorrow’s outcome challenging. As Republicans wait in anticipation of the results from what some think will be a close race, it’s best to take any predictions about tomorrow with a grain of salt. Long lines, confusing rules, and a lack of public polls will inevitably shake things up. All that can be said for certain is that in the case of a tie, Nevada Republicans have promised, in true Las Vegas style, to settle a tie with a highest card draw.