US President Joe Biden easily won a Democratic primary in Nevada against author Marianne Williamson and a handful of less-known challengers on Tuesday, February 6, while Republican Nikki Haley was swamped in their presidential primary, The Associated Press projected. GOP voters resoundingly picked the "none of these candidates" option on the ballot in a repudiation of the former UN ambassador who is the last remaining major rival to front-runner Donald Trump.
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.
Trump didn’t compete in the Republican 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 February 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!"
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.
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.