Another black eye for Haley
Las Vegas – No-one won the Republican Party primary in the US state of Nevada on Tuesday, with Nikki Haley defeated by “None of these candidates”, an embarrassment in a vote in which she was all but unopposed.
The result has no tangible bearing on the race for the Republican nomination because it didn’t carry any delegates – the outcome of a row between state authorities and the Nevada GOP, which will hold a separate caucus this week.
But it’s another black eye for Haley, who lost out to former president Donald Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire votes and is on course to lose in her home state of South Carolina this month.
Official results more than two hours after polls closed showed the former UN ambassador had just 32% of the vote, against more than 61% for “None of these candidates”.
Trump’s team had encouraged his supporters to vote against his sole rival for the party nomination, even as he sat out the ballot.
US media, including NBC and ABC, projected the result would not change.
Haley’s campaign brushed off the result.
“Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots the house wins. We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond,” a spokesperson told CNN.
Nevada held both Republican and Democratic Party primaries on Tuesday – with President Joe Biden projected to win his party’s ballot – mandated by a change in state law.
Both parties in Nevada used to hold caucuses to select their favoured presidential candidate but in 2021, legislators said the primary process would allow for greater participation because people can vote by mail, or cast absentee ballots.
But the Trump-supporting Nevada GOP is wildly distrustful of such measures, as is a swathe of the national party, and said it would ignore the primary and hold a caucus to allocate the state’s delegates.
It also decreed that any candidate who put their name forward for the primary could not enter its caucus.
Critics said while not illegal, the process was rigged to ensure a Trump win.