Donald Trump's man in Nevada
Before the chairman of Nevada's Republican Party introduced former President Donald J. Trump at a campaign event last month, he casually referred to a telling private conversation they had.
“When I spoke to the president, I said, 'I guarantee you that Nevada will show up, and we will get you 100 percent of the delegates for the state of Nevada,'” the chairman, Michael J. McDonald, told hundreds of Trump supporters gathered in Las Vegas.
Mr. McDonald's bold prediction about Thursday's caucuses comes amid his state's unusually divisive nominating contest, the culmination of Mr. McDonald's close relationship with Mr. Trump — an alliance that led to prosecution for the chairman — and his stewardship of a state party that has fully embraced the former president's populist conservatism.
Nevada law requires the state to hold a Republican primary, but Mr. McDonald opposed that. His party will instead reward delegates based solely on caucuses the party held on Thursday evening, with Mr Trump being the only major candidate on the ballot.
The lack of drama partly reflects the vicissitudes of politics: Other candidates did decide to participate in the caucuses and paid the party the required $55,000 for the privilege, but they have since withdrawn from the race.
Still, many of them grumbled about caucus rules the party had enacted in Trump's favor. And Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and the former president's main rival for the Republican nomination, opted for the primaries after deciding the caucuses were biased, a criticism shared by some Nevada political observers, who blamed McDonald.
“I believe he and the Trump campaign decided they could control the caucus vote better than an open primary,” said Chuck Muth, a conservative political activist. 'And he used his position as chairman to put pressure on that.'
The caucus rules established by the party under Mr. McDonald's leadership have put another former Trump rival, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, at a disadvantage by effectively barring the super PAC that backed him from participating.
Mr. McDonald, who did not respond to requests for an interview, had said he would remain neutral in the state's nominating contest. But in recent months he has taken the stage twice at Trump campaign events. (He wasn't the only one to do this: Iowa's Republican chairman took the stage in that state under similar circumstances.)
Mr. McDonald's longstanding loyalty to Mr. Trump has extended to promoting the former president's lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. He was one of six Republicans who signed false certificates awarding Nevada's electoral votes to Mr. Trump, even though Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the state and foiled Mr. Trump's re-election bid. The group, which includes the state party's vice chairman, was indicted by a Nevada grand jury last year and accused of forging and submitting fraudulent documents as part of the scheme.
All six have pleaded not guilty, and Mr. Trump has come to their defense. At a campaign event last year in Reno, he broadly accused Democrats of unfairly prosecuting Mr. McDonald for his actions.
“They're a bunch of dirty players,” Trump said. “Look what they're doing here with Michael and great people in this state. It is a shame.”
Mr. McDonald, a former police officer, served on the Las Vegas City Council from 1995 to 2003. In 2001, a state ethics commission found that he breaking ethical laws when he urged Las Vegas to make a business deal with a sports facility partially owned by one of his employers.
Mr. McDonald ultimately left office under a cloud of scandal and lost his re-election bid while facing a public corruption investigation involving a strip club operator from whom Mr. McDonald had once taken consulting fees. Mr. McDonald was not charged in the case, although he was reportedly interviewed by the FBI
During the years he spent out of elected office, he became, and eventually became, more involved with the state party elected chairman in 2012, brought in by a grassroots wing that felt marginalized by big donors and the Republican establishment. The following year, Mr McDonald was re-elected after telling the party that he rejected a “top-down” approach to leadership.
“People were angry, upset and fed up,” said Zachary Moyle, a Republican political consultant. “Mike was a voice for those people: activists and volunteers and people like that, who felt left out of the party system.”
That ideology paved the way for Mr. McDonald's support of Mr. Trump, who used the same anti-establishment sentiment when he came to power in 2016.
Even though many Republican officials balked, Mr. McDonald was one of the earliest supporters, which is telling The Reno Gazette Journal that he “became a friend” with Mr. Trump in 2015. He campaigned alongside Mr Trump in 2016, when Nevada was a crucial battleground state – as it is this year.
Mr. Muth and Mr. Moyle both said that Mr. McDonald's early and unyielding support for Mr. Trump — who often publicly attacks those he deems insufficiently loyal — had been crucial to him remaining chairman of the state party .
“Find me a more loyal Trump supporter than Mike McDonald,” Mr. Moyle said. “You won't find one.”