Most voters choose ‘none of these candidates’ in Nevada primary as Trump left off ballot

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Nancy Spinelli scanned the Republican presidential primary ballot in Nevada Tuesday and confirmed the absence she expected to find. The list of seven names included Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley. It did not include Donald Trump.

But it did offer one more option: “none of these candidates.”

Ms. Spinelli filled in that circle. She hopes Ms. Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is the last remaining major competitor to challenge Mr. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, gets the message.

It was “a vote not for her,” Ms. Spinelli said.

On Tuesday night, initial results from seven of Nevada’s counties — including the two most populous, home to Las Vegas and Reno — showed 60 per cent of votes for “none of these candidates.” Ms. Haley picked up 33 per cent.

“It should definitely be a wakeup call to her,” Ms. Spinelli said.

In the Democratic primary, U.S. news agencies declared president Joe Biden the winner, with 90 per cent of the initial votes counted.

Mr. Trump had called for Nevada Republicans to skip the primary. But some deliberately disregarded that direction in hopes of showing support for their chosen candidate, even if the best they could do was choose the “none” option.

“I wanted to make a statement. I didn’t want Nikki Haley to get more votes than Trump,” said Debra Gaylord-Thomas, a Republican who is also vice-chair of the Republican in Nye County, a conservative rural area west of Las Vegas.

Ms. Haley’s campaign bypassed Nevada, knowing that any votes cast for her would be symbolic, at best, in a state where Republicans held a dual nominating process that caused widespread confusion.

In 2021, Nevada’s state legislature instituted a primary system in which registered Republicans and Democrats received ballots at home. It was a measure designed to expand participation in the primary process.

But Nevada Republicans, who unsuccessfully sought to block that primary, opted to run a parallel caucus process, which is scheduled for Thursday. The caucus ballot contains only Mr. Trump and Ryan Binkley, a little-known Texas pastor and businessman, each of whom paid US$55,000 to be part of the process. The ballot must be cast in person in a short window on a weeknight, and its results will determine which candidate receives support from Nevada’s delegates to the national party convention later this year.

Candidates in the Tuesday primary will receive no delegates.

The concurrent selection processes — a primary without Mr. Trump, a caucus with Mr. Trump and only one competitor — caused widespread bewilderment, with some deciding to abandon primary voting altogether.

Voting locations across the state saw only a trickle of in-person voters, particularly in Republican areas.

At Great Basin College in Pahrump, 100 kilometres west of Las Vegas, officials had prepared 20 voting booths. Two uniformed officers from the sheriff’s office sat outside to enforce order. Election workers stood vigil inside.

But by the end of lunch, only 15 people had filled out ballots here.

Joseph King was among those who chose not to vote, even after driving through the rain to another voting centre at the Bob Ruud Community Center.

When the state sent a ballot in the mail, he saw that Mr. Trump was not included. “And I said, ‘something is not right here.’” Information about the primary was “very confusing,” he said.

So he came in person, only to confirm that “Trump’s not on the ballot. So — he’s not on the ballot and I’m not voting.”

Adding to the disarray: Republicans in the state can actually mark ballots in both the primary and the caucus. It was only in discussion at the voting location that Mr. King learned he could vote for Mr. Trump on Thursday.

“I blame the Democrats for trying their damnedest to try to confuse us,” he said. “Because it’s never been this way before. Never,” he said.

The choice to run caucuses lay with the state Republican party, in what critics said was an attempt to tip the vote in Mr. Trump’s favour.

Republicans, however, say the state of Nevada should never have imposed a primary, which will cost more than US$5-million to run, and “from the Republican perspective, it’s not going to produce any kind of results that they will follow,” said Mark Kampf, the the county clerk in Nye County.

“The Democrat Party and the Republican Party are private organizations. And so when the state tries to tell a private organization how to select their candidates, then there’s going to be difficulties,” he said.

Mr. Trump lost Nevada by just under 35,000 votes in the last presidential election, but he is wildly popular in Nye County, where he picked up 69 per cent of the vote in 2020.

Leo Blundo, the chair of the Nye County Republicans, took a picture of his primary ballot, in which he scratched out “none of these candidates” and wrote in Donald J. Trump. He wasn’t concerned that his handwriting might lead to the rejection of his ballot.

“If they disqualify it — there they go with disqualifying a vote for Trump,” he said.

He acknowledged that the dual process in Nevada created confusion. He personally fielded nearly 600 calls from people.

It was, he said, an opportunity to encourage them to participate politically.

“I’m turning lemons into limoncello,” he said. “My job as party boss is to have people vote. We win when people vote.”

Other conservatives in the state have argued that Republican uncertainties over the primary risked pushing people away from future voting.

For Mr. Blundo, however, it served an important purpose: telling Ms. Haley that she has little chance against Mr. Trump.

“If I could say one thing to her — the writing is on the wall,” Mr. Blundo said.

“Before it gets ugly, cut and run.”