A Mississippi truck driver who claims to have spent no money on his campaign won a nomination to be governor early Wednesday morning. Robert Gray, 46, reported spending zero dollars on his campaign to become the Democratic party’s nominee for governor, and defeated two rivals with 51% of the vote. He told the Associated Press that he did not vote on Tuesday “because he was busy”. In contrast, trial attorney Vicki Slater, reported spending $68,000 in the last month alone, and almost $200,000 this calendar year. Gray won with 146,333 votes, meaning Slater lost by almost 60,000 votes.
On Tuesday he traveled to the state capitol building for the first time, and a reporter who traveled to the address listed as his home found an apparently abandoned house. A third candidate, physician Valerie Short, spent about $41,000 and 53,968 people voted for her.
Gray did not immediately return a call and email requesting comment, but told the National Journal: “I didn’t really do too much campaigning.”
“I would go to a couple of places and, you know, that’s 20 or 30 people, and I decided then that it wasn’t – there was a lot of time that wasn’t being used pretty well. “I know my two opponents, they campaigned real, very hard. But still they wasn’t getting to the mass majority of people.”
Full Article: Mississippi trucker wins Democratic gubernatorial primary after spending $0 | US news | The Guardian.