Republicans Will Caucus Today in Nevada and the Virgin Islands

The Nevada Republican Party is holding its caucuses Thursday, two days after the state held a mostly symbolic Republican primary in which “none of these candidates” outdrew Nikki Haley.

Former President Donald Trump, who chose to participate in the caucuses in Nevada instead of the primary, is all but assured to pick up every one of Nevada’s 26 delegates, as he is the only major candidate on the ballot.

Trump will attend a watch party later in the evening at the Treasure Island hotel in Las Vegas to witness what will be more of a coronation than an election. The caucuses will wrap up at 10:30 Eastern time, with results possible not long after.

While Nevada Republicans turn out for the caucuses — the outcome of which has largely already been decided for them — a contest whose outcome is not preordained will take place some 3,300 miles away in the Caribbean.

The Virgin Islands, the U.S. territory in the Caribbean, will also hold its Republican caucuses Thursday.

The contest will be small and award many fewer delegates than in Nevada. But unlike Nevada, Haley and Trump will actually be in competition.

The caucuses in the Virgin Islands — one of which will be at a beachside rum bar on the island of St. John — will also close hours before the caucuses conclude in Nevada. This may give the small island archipelago, whose residents cannot vote in the presidential election, a heightened national profile in the Republican presidential race, if only for a few hours.

Haley has sought to push past her embarrassing result in Tuesday’s primary, casting the contests in Nevada as rigged for Trump from the start. She pointed out in a Fox News interview late Wednesday that many of the state’s party leaders have been indicted over their role in the fake elector scheme to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.

Her campaign has pointed to South Carolina as the next real contest that Haley intends to compete in, but a victory in the U.S. Virgin Islands could soften the symbolic blow Nevada dealt her and earn her a handful of delegates for good measure.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .