“None of These Candidates” wins Nevada Republican primary

More than 60 percent of Nevada voters on Tuesday night selected the option “None of These Candidates” in the state’s symbolic Republican primary. Front-runner former President Donald Trump chose not to appear on the ballot, and his last remaining rival, Nikki Haley, received just over 30 percent of the vote. President Joe Biden won the Democratic primary with nearly 90 percent of the vote and secured most of the state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Why is the Republican primary “symbolic”? Candidates who participated in the state-run election on Tuesday are not eligible to win any of the state’s Republican delegates. The delegates will be awarded by the GOP-run caucuses on Thursday. The Nevada legislature in 2021 passed a law aimed at transitioning the state away from party-run caucuses to government-run primary elections. The Nevada Republican Party decided to host its caucus anyway, and its rules prohibit candidates from participating in both contests.

What’s next for the candidates? Republican candidates will face off next in the South Carolina primary election on Feb. 24. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has prioritized the state following the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. The following Democratic primary is in Michigan on Feb. 27.

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta’s report in The Stew about how Trump is all but guaranteed a win in Nevada.