LAS VEGAS — The top vote-getter in Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in Nevada wasn’t former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the only major candidate on the ballot still in the race. Instead, Nevada voters mounted a ballot-box protest and gave the most votes to “None of these candidates,” a ballot option required by state law.
The Associated Press declared “None of these candidates” the winner at 12:01 a.m. based on initial vote results that showed it with a significant lead over Haley in seven counties across the state, including in the two most populous counties. At the time the race was called, “None of these candidates” led with about 60% of the vote. Haley trailed with 33%.
Was Trump on the ballot?
Trump didn’t compete in Tuesday's primary, which doesn’t award any delegates needed to win the GOP nomination. The former president is instead focused on caucuses that will be held Thursday and will help him move closer to becoming the Republican standard-bearer.
That leaves the results Tuesday as technically meaningless in the Republican race. But they still amount to an embarrassment for Haley, who has sought to position herself as a candidate who can genuinely compete against Trump. Instead, she became the first presidential candidate from either party to lose a race to “none of these candidates” since that option was introduced in Nevada in 1975.
Haley had said beforehand she was going to “focus on the states that are fair” and did not campaign in the western state in the weeks leading up to the caucuses, spending time instead in her home state, South Carolina, before its Feb. 24 primary. Her campaign wrote off the results with a reference to Nevada’s famous casino industry.
“Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots the house wins,” spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said. “We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond.”
Trump joked on his social media network, “Watch, she'll soon claim Victory!”
How did Nikki Haley lose to "None of these Candidates" in the primary?
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, had announced beforehand that he would vote for “none of these candidates” on Tuesday. Several Republicans interviewed heading to the polls said they intended to do the same.
Washoe County Republican Party Chair Bruce Parks, who pushed for the GOP to hold caucuses, said that he told voters who called his office — and Trump supporters — to participate in the primary by voting for “none of these candidates” over Haley.
“They basically told us they don’t care about us,” Parks said in an interview after the race was called. “By marking ‘none of these candidates,’ we respond in kind — we don’t care about you either.”
Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, a Trump ally who faces state charges for serving as a so-called “fake elector” on the former president’s behalf, said he left it to each county GOP chairman to decide if they wanted to promote “none of these candidates.” He said Haley's seeming disrespect of Nevada voters was “reciprocated” with the results.
Nevada lawmakers added “none of these candidates” as an option in all statewide races as a way post-Watergate for voters to participate but express dissatisfaction with their choices. “None” can’t win an elected office but it came in first in primary congressional contests in 1976 and 1978. It also finished ahead of both George Bush and Edward Kennedy in Nevada’s 1980 presidential primaries.
Will Trump win the Nevada caucuses?
The caucuses on Thursday are the only Nevada contest that count toward the GOP’s presidential nomination. But they were seen as especially skewed in favor of Trump because of the intense grassroots support they require from candidates and new state party rules that benefitted him further.
Trump is expected to handily win the caucuses, which should deliver him all 26 of the state’s delegates. Delegates are party members, activists and elected officials who vote at the national party conventions to formally select the party’s nominee.
“If your goal is to win the Republican nomination for president, you go where the delegates are. And it baffles me that Nikki Haley chose not to participate,” Trump’s senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita said in an interview before the primary.
Nevada, the third state in the field after Iowa and New Hampshire, was set to hold a state-run primary election instead of party-run caucuses after Democrats controlling the Legislature changed the law to try to boost participation.
Caucuses typically require voters to show up for an in-person meeting at a certain day or time, while elections can offer more flexibility to participate, with polls open for most of the day on Election Day, along with absentee or early voting.
But Nevada Republicans chose to hold party-run caucuses instead, saying they wanted certain rules in place, like a requirement that participants show a government-issued ID.
The caucuses require a candidate to intensely organize supporters around the state in order to be competitive, a feat that Trump, the former president and prohibitive front-runner, was easily positioned to do.
The Nevada GOP also restricted the involvement of super PACs like the one Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was relying on to boost his now-suspended campaign. And the party barred candidates from appearing both on the primary ballot and in the caucuses.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott also signed up to compete in Nevada’s primary instead of the caucuses before ending their presidential campaigns.
Jeff Turner, 65, came to the Reno Town Mall with a ballot checked off for “none of these candidates" while also lamenting the increasingly likely November rematch between Biden and Trump.
“I think it’s my duty,” Turner said. “I think we all have the right to vote, we ought to vote. And even if it’s none of these candidates, it’s at least stating where I’m at. And I’m hoping others will see that.”
Why did the AP call the race?
For Haley to overcome “None of these candidates” and take the lead, she would have needed to win by an overwhelming margin in the ballots left to be counted. But she wasn’t getting that level of support anywhere in the state. In fact, in the county where she was doing best, she wasn’t ahead — she trailed “None of these candidates” by double digits in Washoe County.
Initial returns showed “None of these candidates” leading in seven counties that Trump carried in his 2016 Nevada caucus win.
Besides Haley, the seven-person GOP primary field included former candidates Mike Pence and Tim Scott, who both dropped out of the race after the primary ballot had been locked in, as well as four relatively unknown hopefuls.
The victory for “None of these candidates” has no official impact on the race for the GOP presidential nomination, since the primary was non-binding and had no delegates at stake. The Nevada Republican Party opted to hold a presidential caucus Thursday to award delegates and has essentially disavowed the primary.
Republican voters who cast ballots in Tuesday’s primary are also allowed to participate in Thursday’s binding caucuses, but the state party has barred candidates who appeared on the primary ballot from also competing in the caucuses, forcing candidates to choose one event over the other. Haley chose to compete in the primary, while Trump opted to compete in the caucuses, where he faces only one candidate and is expected to win most or all of the delegates up for grabs.
Why was "None of these Candidates" on the ballot?
“None of these candidates” has appeared as an option in statewide races in Nevada since 1975. The ballot option can’t be elected to an office; the winner would be the candidate with the highest number of votes. For example, in the 2014 Democratic primary for governor, “None of these candidates” was the top vote-getter with 30% of the vote, but former state official Bob Goodman, who placed second with 25% of the vote, nonetheless won the nomination and advanced to the general election.
“None of these candidates” placed second in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries in 1980. Ronald Reagan scored an overwhelming win with 83% of the vote, but “None of these candidates” was a distant second with about 10% of the vote, just ahead of George H.W. Bush. In the Democratic race, incumbent President Jimmy Carter won the event with about 38% of the vote, followed by “None of these candidates” with about 34% and Ted Kennedy in third place with about 29% of the vote.
Did Joe Biden win the Democratic Nevada primary?
There was also a Democratic primary on Tuesday that President Joe Biden easily won against author Marianne Williamson and a handful of less-known challengers. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota was not on the ballot.
Biden issued a statement thanking Nevada voters for their support and, with an eye toward an expected matchup in November, warned that Trump is trying to divide America.
“I want to thank the voters of Nevada for sending me and Kamala Harris to the White House four years ago, and for setting us one step further on that same path again tonight. We must organize, mobilize, and vote. Because one day, when we look back, we’ll be able to say, when American democracy was a risk, we saved it — together," Biden said.
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Price reported from Washington and Stern from Reno, Nevada.