Nevada primaries: Joe Biden sails to victory, Nikki Haley loses to 'none of these candidates'

Feb. 6 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden declared victory as he easily won the Nevada Democratic Primary on Tuesday, while former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley came second in the Republican presidential race behind "none of these candidates."

"Thank you, Nevada!" Biden said in a statement on X late Tuesday. "We're building a campaign that leaves no one behind. Let's keep up this momentum."

Biden was challenged by essentially only writer Marianne Williamson as Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota last year failed to file as a candidate in time to make the ballot.

Unofficial results from Nevada's secretary of state show Biden won a commanding 89.8% of ballots, representing 79,403 votes. Williamson finished third with 2.52% or 2,231 votes behind "none of these candidates," which garnered 5,158 votes for nearly 6%.

Twenty-six delegates are at stake in the Democratic primary, which took place days after Biden won all 55 delegates in the South Carolina primary. It was the first primary to award delegates to the incumbent after the Democratic National Convention has not agreed to seat delegates from the New Hampshire primary last month.

However, the stakes were more symbolic in the competing GOP primary where Haley faced little competition as the party is not seating delegates from the state. It will only recognize delegates won in the caucus taking place on Thursday.

The Nevada Republican Party ruled that candidates cannot participate in both the primary and caucus. This means Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is not eligible to take part in Thursday's caucus with former President Donald Trump and pastor Ryan Binkley.

With Trump off the card, Haley finished second with 32.4% of the vote for 15,704 ballots, falling well behind "none of these candidates," which received more than 29,600 votes for 61.24%, according to unofficial state results. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who dropped out of the race in late October, finished third with 4.1% of the vote share at 2,018 votes.

Nevada polls opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m. PST. Early voting began on Jan. 27.

Nearly 4,000 people cast early votes on opening day, including 2,876 voters in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. Democratic primary votes accounted for 1,870 of Clark County's day-one voters along with 1,006 in the Republican primary.

Through Friday, 23,692 early votes had been cast. More than 60% were cast in the Democratic primary.

There are 689,949 registered voters in the county. This includes 318,333 Democrats, 229,369 Republicans, 27,620 independents and 107,629 non-partisans.

Biden also won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, even though he was not on the ballot.