Presidential Primary Election Gone Wrong
The Republican presidential election results have started to come in. Evidently, Nikki Haley has lost this election, not to another candidate, but to the option “None of These Candidates.” This year, voters had the option to basically opt-out of selecting candidates. And needless to say they did. More than half of the votes chose not to pick a candidate, 63.2 percent of voters to be exact. Only 30.5 percent of voters chose Nikki Haley. Trump on the other hand, did not choose to be on the presidential primary election. He is going to be in the caucuses which is today.
Trump’s campaign encouraged the voters to ignore the primary election and instead focus on the caucus. This is why many people who voted, chose the third option. Many of the residents in the state of Nevada are Trump Supporters. This shows why the majority of people in the community did not choose any of the candidates. They are all waiting for Trump’s option. Editor of the Nevada Independent, tweeted a post that said he found it extremely embarrassing to lose to a non candidate option and might as well “drop out.”
“I tell people if they want to vote for Trump, they have to go to the caucus and to vote none of the above,” said by a Trump caucus captain, Guadalupe Reyes.
Nikki Claims Election to Be ‘Rigged’
“Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots, the house wins. We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump,” said by Nikki Haley’s spokesperson, Olivia Perez Cubas. Even though Nikki Haley was on the primary ballot, she did not do any marketing whatsoever or invest in any campaigns because she is not a candidate of the caucus election.
“We made the decision early on that we were not going to pay $55,000 to a Trump entity to participate in a process that was rigged for Trump. So Nevada is not and has never been our focus,” stated by Nikki Haley’s campaign coordinator, Betsy Ankney.
The option to not choose an candidates has been a thing in Nevada since 1975. However, the state only counts for an actual candidate to move forward with the election, making this invalid. This means that technically, Nikki Haley must be the one to move forward with the election. This was mostly to show to the public her unpopularity compared to that of Trump’s.
But Why Are They in Two Different Elections?
This week there have been two different elections from Nevada. One was the primary election and the second one is the caucus election. Nikki Haley was a candidate on the primary election, however, Trump is on the caucus election. So why were did these two famous candidates go on different ballots? Well Trump claims that Haley is not on the caucus ballot because she did not want to ‘play’ in Nevada. She knew that Trump had an advantage in the state and chose not to even try to conquer it.
Since not being the primary ballot candidate is not going to impede candidates from becoming the president, Trump decided to switch to caucus election. And he let his fans know it as well, telling them to focus on the caucus ballot because he is in it. This is possible in Nevada to have two different ballots because of a law passed in 2021. This bill wanted to ditch the traditional election ways and decided to bring in a state primary election. This is due to the 2020 elections. Currently, Nikki Haley is the runner up for Nevada’s primary ballot. However, people know she will not be the one winning this state.
Written by Erika Cano
Sources:
CBS News: Trump wasn’t on Nevada’s 2024 GOP primary ballot, and Haley won’t be on Nevada’s caucus ballot. Here’s why.
Snopes: More Than 60% of Nevada Primary Voters Picked ‘None of These Candidates’ Over Nikki Haley?
NBC News: Nikki Haley loses to ‘none of these candidates’ in the Nevada GOP primary
Featured Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore‘s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore‘s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
