President Joe Biden easily won Nevada’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday night, NBC News projects, moving him one step closer to officially securing his party’s nomination against GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Minnesota Democrat Dean Phillips, a longtime primary challenger against Biden, entered the race too late to get on the ballot in Nevada, meaning self-help author Marianne Williamson was Biden’s most prominent challenger in Tuesday’s contest.
Biden is on track to win a large majority of the vote, with Williamson far behind him, as he has been in the previous two contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
“I want to thank the voters of Nevada for sending me and Kamala Harris to the White House four years ago and for taking us one step further down the same path tonight. We need to organize, mobilize and vote. Because one day, looking back, we can say that American democracy when there was a risk, we saved it – together,” said Biden.
This is the first year Nevada Democrats have held a primary instead of a caucus. The state made the change in accordance with new rules from the Democratic National Committee, which also updated the 2024 presidential nominating calendar.
Next up for the Democrats is Michigan, a newcomer to the Super Tuesday window of early primaries and a critical general election wave state, on February 27.
While Biden’s campaign was competitive in last Saturday’s South Carolina primary, and he has sought to shore up support among worried groups such as Muslim voters in Michigan, he has made little effort in Nevada.
Despite polls showing Biden weaker against Trump now than at any point in 2020, he faces only marginal opposition for his re-election bid, with nearly every elected Democrat in the country rallying behind him, giving Phillips or Williamson plenty of political oxygen. or deprived of impulse.
With the Democratic nomination in hand, Biden’s re-election campaign has been focused on Trump since its inception.
The drama in the Democratic primaries was so much about the process, not the results.
The DNC tried to demote New Hampshire from its traditionally first-in-the-nation position, but state officials planned to go first anyway.
Biden was kept off the ballot in New Hampshire in violation of party rules, but he still won an unauthorized contest on January 23 as a registered candidate. He got 64% of the votes, Phillips got 20% and Williamson got 4%.
In South Carolina, Biden won 96% of the vote.
Nnamdi Egwuonwu contributed.