LAS VEGAS — Nevada is Donald Trump’s to lose. 
 
 That, you can take to the bank. But variables that will crystallize the state of the race heading into next week’s Super Tuesday contests — the size of Trump’s expected win and the race for second place between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — remain wild cards here as Republicans head out to caucus on Tuesday. 
 
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 Nevada’s caucus electorate is tiny: Campaigns are expecting a turnout of roughly 40,000 — less than a quarter of Iowa’s turnout in a state of about the same size. Its transient population is difficult to track, a problem compounded by the lack of any complete statewide list of 2012 caucus-goers. And its limited track record of caucuses — they began in 2008 — provides little in the way of historical benchmarks. 
 
 “I think Trump’s going to win and I would be surprised if he lost, but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on it,” said journalist Jon Ralston, a longtime chronicler of Nevada politics. The rest, he said, is unpredictable. “It’s just all a total crapshoot with this kind of turnout.” 
 
 Some surveys in recent weeks, both public and private, have shown Trump’s support surging past 40 percent — and rival campaigns expect the New York billionaire to win on Tuesday despite organizational advantages enjoyed by both Rubio and Cruz, who both built operations here before Trump. 
 
 A CNN poll conducted earlier this month gave Trump 45 percent support among likely caucus-goers, way ahead of Rubio at 19 percent and Cruz at 17 percent. Ben Carson was at 7 percent and John Kasich at 5 percent. 
 
 “This is the perfect state for Trump,” said one top Nevada conservative. “Being a flashy billionaire with ties to gaming is a positive here.” 
 
 Because of that, the real action is in the fight to come in second and limit Trump’s margin of victory. 
 
 Cruz has won the support of Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a rising conservative star, and is targeting rural voters, including with a new ad that swipes at Trump on the hot-button issue of federal control of most of Nevada’s lands, which many rural voters and business interests would like to put under state control. 
 
 But Cruz’s campaign here may be hobbled by the stubborn resilience of Carson, who has little hope of winning the nomination but is refusing to drop out and whose well-organized Nevada operation could capture a chunk of religious conservative caucus-goers who would otherwise support the Texas senator. 
 
 Meanwhile, Rubio has been buoyed by his second-place finish in South Carolina and the suspension of Jeb Bush’s campaign, which is allowing him to consolidate the support of the state’s Republican establishment in the final days of the race. Nevada’s junior senator, Dean Heller, a former Bush backer, endorsed Rubio over the weekend. 
 
 Already, his campaign was stocked with aides to Nevada’s popular governor, Brian Sandoval. Rubio’s state director, Jeremy Hughes, managed Sandoval’s 2014 reelection campaign. 
 
 The Florida senator, who spent six years in Nevada in his childhood, has also leveraged his brief stint as a Mormon during that period to appeal to members of the church, the state’s most consistent group of Republican voters, who are expected to make up a quarter or more of the caucus electorate. 
 
 “The Mormon vote is going to turn out,” said Peter Ernaut, a Republican operative and adviser to Sandoval who switched his support from Bush to Rubio after the former Florida governor dropped out. “It’s a question of whether or not that Mormon vote is diluted by a more populist wave of voters that are driven by the Trump campaign.” 
 
 That wave could be significant. 
 
 Trump’s operation here has focused in large part on registering new voters — who make up a rich vein in a state where many residents are recent arrivals. It’s a specialty of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who has led voter registration drives for the Koch brothers-backed American for Prosperity and pulled in fellow AFP alumnus Charles Munoz to head up Trump’s operations in the state with help from Tim Williams, a former political director of the Clark County Republicans who joined AFP last year. 
 
 There are early signs that those efforts will pay off. More than 5,200 new Republicans registered in the last two weeks before the deadline for caucus eligibility – half of them in the last two days – according to Jack St. Martin, the president of Engage Nevada, a conservative voter registration group, who described the surge as unusual. 
 
 “It’s a genuine factor that has to be considered,” said Republican National Committeewoman Diana Orrock, a Trump supporter, of the new Republicans added to the rolls. 
 
 Both Cruz and Rubio were building campaigns here long before Trump, who only hired Munoz as his state director in August. And both are powered by the organizations of the Nevada Republican heavyweights who serve as their state chairman: Laxalt, in Cruz’s case, and Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, in Rubio’s. 
 
 Nevada Republicans view the contest between the two senators here as a proxy war between Hutchison and Laxalt, who are both vying to succeed the term-limited Sandoval as governor. 
 
 Whichever senator edges the other for second place will be able to sell himself as the strongest challenger to Trump heading into next week’s Super Tuesday contests. 
 
 And whoever ends up with that consolation prize will still be faced with the unlucky task of finding a way to beat Trump outright. 
 
 “People in general are kind of fed up with business as usual,” said Orrock. “That’s one thing that gives Donald Trump the edge not only here, but nationally.” 
 
 Authors: ||||| “A lot of strange things happen here," Donald Trump says of Nevada. | AP Photo Trump trashes 'dangerous' caucus system 
 
 Donald Trump is crusading against the caucuses. 
 
 In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Monday, the billionaire businessman trashed Nevada’s caucus, calling it a “dangerous” system. 
 
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 “A lot of strange things happen here,” Trump said in reference to the off-chance that he could lose Tuesday’s Republican caucus in the state. 
 
 But he was quick to shuffle possible blame onto the process, not necessarily the polls. 
 
 “The caucus system is dangerous, to use a very nice word. It’s sort of a dangerous system.” 
 
 Hewett went on to tell Trump that Jon Ralston, a seasoned political reporter in Nevada, predicts he will take away a big win. 
 
 “He’s a great guy, and he really knows this state better than everybody, and I saw him actually today talking about that, so I hope he’s right,” Trump said, before slamming the system again. 
 
 “I just think the caucus system throws wrinkles in it.” 
 
 ||||| Las Vegas (CNN) Donald Trump unleashed tough rhetoric against his rivals as well as a protester at a Monday night rally, the eve before the Nevada caucuses. 
 
 "I'd like to punch him in the face," Trump said, remarking that a man disrupting his rally was escorted out with a smile on his face. "He's smiling, having a good time." 
 
 The GOP front-runner also ratcheted up his attacks on Sen. Ted Cruz, calling his Republican presidential rival "sick." 
 
 Trump: Protester 'nasty as hell' 
 
 Trump claimed the protester was "nasty as hell" and accused the man of trying to punch the security officers forcing him out of the rally, though the man did not appear to be fighting off those officers. 
 
 "In the old days," Trump added, protesters would be "carried out on stretchers." 
 
 "We're not allowed to push back anymore," Trump said. 
 
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 While Trump has at times urged his supporters not to hurt protesters, he has also repeatedly suggested that supporters should be handled more roughly. 
 
 When a Black Lives Matter protester was punched and kicked by attendees at a Trump rally last fall, Trump remarked the next day that "maybe he should have been roughed up." 
 
 Shortly after that incident, the Trump campaign began making an announcement at the start of its rallies urging supporters to not harm any protesters, but instead shout "Trump, Trump, Trump" and wait for security officials to escort the protesters out. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Watch Donald Trump's 'cameo' in 'Game of Thrones' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Watch Donald Trump's 'cameo' in 'Game of Thrones' 00:45 
 
 The Trump campaign did not make the announcement before Monday's rally. It was unclear what the man who disrupted it was protesting. 
 
 Moments earlier, another man raised a banner that read, "Veterans to Trump: End hate speech against Muslims." 
 
 Trump on Cruz: 'Something wrong with this guy' 
 
 Of Cruz, Trump took aim at the senator's campaign tactics, including the attack ads Cruz and his allies have run against Trump. 
 
 "This guy is sick. There's something wrong with this guy," Trump said. 
 
 Cruz's campaign has run several ads scrutinizing Trump's record on a variety of issues important to conservatives, including Trump's past support for abortion rights and stricter gun control measures. 
 
 "I missed the part where Donald challenges our facts?" Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told CNN. "He can't, because our ads are true -- he is not a real conservative. He can't defend his record, so like a frustrated child, he resorts to name calling." 
 
 Trump has repeatedly slammed Cruz since the Texas senator surged in the polls ahead of the Iowa caucuses and has since ramped up his attacks on him since Cruz beat Trump in the Iowa contest. 
 
 The Texas senator, meanwhile, has criticized Trump over a range of issues, from Trump's support for abortion rights in 1999 to Trump's use of eminent domain laws for personal gain. He's also suggested that Trump, who has vowed to repeal Obamacare, supports the signature health care law, pointing to Trump's September interview with "60 Minutes" in which Trump said that "everyone's got to be covered" when asked if he supported universal health care. 
 
 Trump: 'What the hell is a caucus?' 
 
 Trump's Monday rally came on the eve of the Nevada caucuses and Trump spent much of his speech urging his supporters to head to the caucuses to give him what would be his third consecutive victory in the GOP primary. 
 
 "They're all saying Trump's gonna win tomorrow. Just assume we're going to tie," Trump told his supporters on Monday night. 
 
 And Trump, who has slammed the caucus process since losing to Cruz in Iowa, told his supporters to forget about the slightly more arduous caucus process, which involves voters meeting at a caucus location and hearing pitches for each candidate before casting their vote. 
 
 "Forget the word caucus, just go out and vote, OK?" Trump said. "What the hell is a caucus? Nobody even knows what it means." 
 
 Cruz supporter Beck denounces Trump as a 'bully' 
 
 At a Cruz rally in Elko earlier on Monday, supporter Glenn Beck condemned those sorts of outbursts by Trump -- calling him a bully and asking rural Nevada voters to reject that kind of rhetoric. 
 
 Beck faulted Trump for threatening protesters at earlier rallies, and noted that Trump issued a threatening tweet on Monday to the Ricketts family, which has been politically active in recent cycles. 
 
 "I hear the (Ricketts) family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful. They have a lot to hide," Trump tweeted. 
 
 I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 22, 2016 
 
 "When we have a candidate that threatens people," Beck said. "This is not American. This is not equal justice. This is not who were are." 
 
 "If we give in to our anger, if we start to go down that path and we start to listen to the bullies. We lose what made us great," Beck said before introducing Cruz. ||||| Donald Trump exuded the confidence of an emboldened Republican presidential frontrunner who has little to fear, using a rally on the eve of the Nevada caucuses to call his rival Ted Cruz “sick” and reacting to a heckler by saying: “I’d like to punch him in the face.” 
 
 It was an extraordinary performance, even by Trump’s standards, alarming to those who fear the rise of a demagogue, but speaking to the apparent strength of the billionaire’s lead in Nevada and elsewhere. 
 
 Fight for the right: Cruz and Rubio spar in Nevada to be Trump's challenger Read more 
 
 Trump enjoys a double-digit lead in Nevada, which hosts the fourth state contest in the Republican race for the White House on Tuesday. 
 
 The businessman won the last two states, New Hampshire and South Carolina, although Tuesday’s caucus-style voting procedure could prove better suited to his two main rivals. 
 
 
 
 Cruz and Marco Rubio, two senators locked in a fight for the mantle of Trump’s chief challenger, spent the day trading punches as they crisscrossed Nevada for a final 24 hours of increasingly bitter campaigning. 
 
 It was undoubtedly a better day for Rubio, who received a cascade of endorsements from senior Republicans after ex-Florida governor Jeb Bush pulled out of the race at the weekend. They included the 1996 presidential nominee Bob Dole and a slew of senior lawmakers. 
 
 Cruz, on the other hand, was forced to sack his national spokesman, Rick Tyler, after he circulated a video on Sunday that allegedly showed Rubio mocking the Bible as he walked past a Cruz staffer in a hotel lobby. 
 
 The row over the video, which a conservative blog wrongly said showed Rubio saying the Bible had “not many answers in it” (he had in fact said it had “all the answers in it”), marked a further deterioration in an already ugly fight between the first-term senators. 
 
 Even as Cruz told reporters he had sacked Tyler because of “a grave error of judgment”, he insisted he had been the victim of below-the-belt assaults from rivals who he said “attack us personally, impugn my integrity”. 
 
 In reality, the Texan senator’s campaign has been repeatedly accused of engaging in dirty tricks, and both Trump and Rubio are now openly calling Cruz a liar. 
 
 Both candidates repeated the allegation on Monday. “I think it’s a very disturbing pattern of deceptive campaigns and flat-out just lying to voters,” Rubio told reporters, before boarding a flight to the remote town of Elko. 
 
 At his rally in Las Vegas, Trump said of the Texan senator: “This guy Cruz has lied more than any human being. He holds up the Bible, and he lies.” 
 
 Trump went on to complain about a “phony” Cruz ad airing in Nevada that accuses Trump of wanting to leave the state’s federal lands in the hands of the government. “This guy is sick, there’s something wrong with this guy,” Trump said. 
 
 When one of two hecklers interrupted the businessman, the property magnate openly talked of violence. “You know what they used to do with guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks,” he said. 
 
 Noting the protester was smiling as he was escorted out, Trump quipped: “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell you that.” It was a remarkable comment from a presidential candidate who appears to be building a momentum that could soon be unstoppable. 
 
 In his recent wins, Trump has exhibited the breadth of support that provides him with a clear path to the nomination, even if his high poll rating in Nevada masks what some anticipate will be an underlying weakness in the state. 
 
 Nevada is like Iowa in that it apportions its delegates through a caucus rather than a straight primary vote. Trump’s defeat in Iowa was largely put down to inferior campaign organisation and the lack of political experience among his supporters. 
 
 Caucuses are complicated contests that can be inaccessible to first-time voters, and both Cruz and Rubio have built superior ground games in the state. In 2012, only around 8% of the state’s eligible GOP caucus-goers participated in the contest – and on turnout that low a surprise is possible. 
 
 The other two candidates remaining in the GOP field – Ohio governor John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson – are trailing badly and not expected to perform well in Nevada. 
 
 However, Cruz proved in Iowa that he can excite a dedicated army of deeply Christian voters. However, his performance in South Carolina, where he was effectively tied with Rubio, cast doubt over that strategy after exit polls indicated he won fewer evangelical voters than Trump. 
 
 Rubio, on paper at least, should be an especially well-suited candidate for Nevada. He spent part of his childhood in Las Vegas, where his father worked behind a bar and his mother was a hotel maid. He was also baptized as a Mormon, a key voting demographic in the state which his campaign has been courting relentlessly. 
 
 
 
 Born to Cuban parents, Rubio is competing in a state where a third of the population is Latino – although only a tiny fraction will take part in a GOP caucus. While Cruz has pursued the state’s rural, religious vote, Rubio has claimed he can diversify the party’s electorate, with some justification. 
 
 Janelle LaFleur, a hotel housekeeping manager in Reno, was already a fan of Rubio before seeing him speak at the sprawling Tuscan villa-style Peppermill casino resort and spa on Monday. But she said that had reinforced her support for the senator and she would caucus for him on Tuesday. “Being a housekeeping manager, I work with people like his mother,” she said. 
 
 However, the Florida senator is not remaining in Nevada for the results – forgoing the chance for a victory party in what many assume is a sign his campaign team is not hopeful. 
 
 Even a defeat in Nevada may not significantly dent the momentum Trump appears to have built. He looks poised for success on Super Tuesday on 1 March in which 11 states host contests. 
 
 Some pundits are anticipating he could win every state bar Texas, Cruz’s home turf. In Massachusetts, one of the Super Tuesday states, Trump leads by an incredible 50 percentage points, according to a recent poll that put his nearest rival, Rubio, on 16%. 
 
 Trump is undoubtedly running to win Nevada, too, touring the state on a demanding schedule to get out his base. He used his rally at the South Point casino arena in Las Vegas to repeatedly implore spectators to turn out at caucus sites on Tuesday evening. 
 
 “What the hell is a caucus? No one even know what it means,” Trump told his audience. “Forget the word caucus, just go out and vote, OK?” He added: “I don’t want to turn on the television and see Donald Trump has the biggest crowds but his people are too damn lazy.” 
 
 Trump rallies have become notorious, but this one nonetheless stood out for the passion of the audience and the swagger of the man on stage. 
 
 There is something quintessentially Trumpian about Las Vegas, a city of winners and losers in which the businessman’s named is emblazoned across one of the tallest towers, and on Tuesday he appeared in his element. 
 
 The crowd was frenzied even before his arrival, with chants of “USA” and spontaneous ripples of hand waves through the arena. Shortly before he appeared, the room went dark, and the arena was lit up with cellphone lights. Trump entered the auditorium on a long walkway that cut through the adoring crowd. 
 
 “So many American politicians lie to get a vote,” said Steven Boz, a rock musician with long, blonde hair, who relocated to Las Vegas from Los Angeles after his acting career didn’t work out. He was approving of the sentiment of the presidential candidate, but like many Trump supporters, and the businessman himself, was vague on detail. 
 
 “Trump has a backbone, no political correctness or any of that shit. It’s real. You can’t have anyone come into the country and kill everyone, and all that crap. Build a fucking wall and keep them out and put more money in America,” he said. ||||| Ralph Freso/Getty Images 
 
 It’s good to be Donald J. Trump. The real estate tycoon has won the past two Republican nominating contests, and the polls suggest he’s set to extend that winning streak on Tuesday night at Nevada’s GOP caucus. He’s currently up by an average of 16 percentage points on his nearest rival in the Silver State. Based on those polls, Nate Silver and his team at FiveThirtyEight peg Trump’s chances of winning the caucus at 78 percent. Anything other than another Trump victory speech would be a narrative-shifting surprise. 
 
 Josh Voorhees Josh Voorhees is a Slate senior writer. He lives in Iowa City. 
 
 Still, those numbers come with some pretty massive caveats. The state is notoriously difficult to poll, given its transitory population and the fact that so many people work night shifts at casinos and hotels, making them unlikely to answer the phone when pollsters tend to call and generally making it more difficult for them to caucus if they were surveyed. There have been only two—two!—major GOP surveys conducted in Nevada this year, both of which are from before Jeb Bush dropped out of the race. (Bush was averaging about 5 percent support in the state.) Both of those found Trump as the heavy favorite, though the CNN poll found him with a 26-point lead on second-place Marco Rubio while the Gravis survey showed Trump with a 16-point advantage on second-place Ted Cruz. We think Trump is up, but we don’t know by how much or even which of his rivals is best positioned to deny him another momentum-building victory. 
 
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 Also, while Trump is the clear polling leader in the state, he isn’t exactly known for the type of ground game seen as crucial to winning a caucus, where supporters need to spend considerably more time and energy than they do to vote in a traditional primary. That may have been what cost Trump Iowa, where he fell short of his average in that state’s caucus, losing to Cruz by 3 points despite leading the Texas senator in the polls by an average of 5 points heading into the night. Cruz and Rubio—currently averaging 23 percent and 19 percent in the Nevada polls, respectively—both exceeded expectations in Iowa and will hope to do the same in Nevada as they fight for the title of the man best suited to defeat Trump. (John Kasich would love to turn what now looks like a three-man race into a four-man one, but the Ohio governor’s stuck in the single digits in Nevada and will have to wait for friendlier terrain in the Midwest next month for anything good to happen to him. Ben Carson, meanwhile, would love for people to remember that he’s technically still running for president.) 
 
 Trump’s presence atop the polls isn’t the only thing causing uncertainty in Nevada. There also isn’t a lot of history to work with. The state wasn’t given its first-in-the-West status until 2008, and Mitt Romney was the runaway winner both that year and four years later thanks to heavy turnout among the state’s Mormon population. (Pollsters missed the mark badly on the first caucus go-round, too: Romney averaged around 26 percent in state polls in 2008 but went on to win with roughly twice that support.) Mormons—who accounted for roughly a quarter of GOP caucusgoers in 2012—don’t have an obvious choice in this year’s race, or as much motivation to show up in the same type of numbers. 
 
 Overall turnout is also a big question mark. About 44,000 Republicans showed up at the Nevada caucus in 2008, a number that dropped to 33,000 in 2012. For comparison, a record 180,000 Republicans caucused in Iowa at the start of this month. The Nevada GOP is desperate to set its own turnout record this year to preserve its fragile first-four status, but it hasn’t done itself any favors by not allowing same-day registration. ||||| Donald J. Trump was declared the winner of the Nevada caucuses on Tuesday night, according to The Associated Press, gaining a third consecutive victory in an early-voting state and strengthening his position in the Republican presidential race before the wave of Super Tuesday elections on March 1. 
 
 Mr. Trump was seen as a favorite going into the contest. Even so, his victory serves as a setback for his chief competitors, Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, who must now try to break Mr. Trump’s winning streak in the larger states that vote in the coming weeks. 
 
 Mr. Trump was declared the winner on Tuesday night, and final returns reported by The A.P. put him 22 points over his nearest challenger, Mr. Rubio, with Mr. Cruz trailing in third place. Turnout in Nevada was reported to be high compared with previous caucuses. 
 
 For Mr. Trump, the outcome in Nevada is another sign of his campaign’s durability and the breadth of his appeal: He has now handily won primary elections in New England and in the South, and a caucus fight in the far West. He won over independent voters in New Hampshire and evangelicals in South Carolina, and prevailed in Nevada, where Mormon voters and rural activists wield influence.
– Donald Trump has promised to start acting more presidential, but there wasn't much sign of it at a rally in Nevada Monday night, where he told the crowd ahead of Tuesday's caucus that he would like to punch a protester in the face. "He's smiling, having a good time," Trump complained as a heckler he described as "nasty as hell" was hauled out of the Las Vegas rally, CNN reports. "You know what they used to do with guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks," said Trump. At the rally, Trump denounced Ted Cruz as "sick" and a liar, the Guardian reports. "This guy Cruz has lied more than any human being. He holds up the Bible, and he lies," Trump said, complaining about a Cruz ad accusing him of siding with the federal government in land disputes. Nevada holds its Republican caucus Tuesday evening, and Trump has a commanding lead in the polls with support of around 40%. "This is the perfect state for Trump," a top Nevada conservative tells Politico. "Being a flashy billionaire with ties to gaming is a positive here." Analysts say the real contest to watch will be the race for second between Cruz and Marco Rubio, though with an expected turnout of just 40,000 voters and little data to go on, the state could still provide surprises. (Indeed, Slate shares an "anything can happen" view here.) Trump himself seems prepared for that. "A lot of strange things happen here," he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, per Politico, adding that the caucus is "sort of a dangerous system." The New York Times notes that Nevada has been holding early presidential votes only since 2008, and GOP caucus voters picked Mitt Romney that year and in 2012. (Trump fits almost seamlessly into Game of Thrones.)