By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau: Nevada state Republican Party officials today announced they expect all the major GOP candidates will visit the state ahead of the Feb. 4 first in the West caucus.
The Nevada GOP is also introducing social media into the process, using the Google and Twitter platforms to report the caucus results beginning about 5 p.m. that day from 16 of the state’s 17 counties.
Final results won’t be known until sometime after 7 p.m. however, because of the Clark County GOP decision to hold one at-large caucus to accommodate religious concerns by some in the Jewish and 7th Day Adventist faiths who cannot participate until after sundown.
Clark County results won’t be complete until that late caucus concludes.
“I’m so excited about Feb. 4,” said Nevada GOP Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian in a telephone conference announcing details of the event. “We are first in the West, which is vital, and as we’re watching everything take off across the country it looks like we may be the tipping point.”
The Republican presidential contest is expected to remain undecided through the Florida primary on Tuesday. Nevada is the next state in the process with its caucus. As many as 60,000 Republicans could participate.
Tarkanian said Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are all expected to campaign in Nevada in coming days. Romney won the caucus in 2008.
“And I am just so thrilled that we have the top four willing and able to come and participate here in our state,” she said.
The caucus events for most participants will occur in each county from between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Clark County is the only county to have the evening at-large caucus.
Jim Anderson with CAP Public Affairs, hired by the Nevada GOP to help win Nevada for Republicans in November, said the use of Twitter and Google is a new wrinkle in presidential politics.
“One of the really cool things that we’re doing with this caucus that I believe has never been done before is utilizing both Twitter and Google to get the results out in what we think is the most efficient way to date,” he said.
The Nevada GOP Titter account, NVGOP, will be used to tweet the results, Anderson said. The Google election results map will be used as well and be available on the state GOP website, he said.
It should be the fastest results coming out of a caucus in history, Anderson said.
“We think we’ve got a tool for this caucus that could be a model tool moving forward for primaries and caucuses for states all around the country,” he said. “We’re extremely excited about launching it in Nevada.”
State GOP officials said they do not believe holding the late at-large caucus in Clark County will hamper or skew the reporting of the results. The results will be checked to make sure no one voted twice.
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Audio clips:
State GOP Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian says all four major GOP contenders will be in Nevada for the caucus:
012712Tarkanian1 :26 here in Nevada.”
Tarkanian says she is thrilled that the four candidates will be participating:
012712Tarkanian2 :14 of last December.”
Jim Anderson with CAP Public Affairs says the Nevada GOP will be using Twitter and Google to get the results out:
012712Anderson1 :15 way to date.”
Anderson says the results will be released more quickly than ever before:
012712Anderson2 :20 and efficient way.”
