Clinton or Trump? Neither, says Bush

In an unusual break from custom, former United States president George W Bush and his wife Laura did not vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

Bush and his wife did not vote for either major-party presidential nominee this year, a spokesman for the former president told the Texas Tribune.

Instead, they voted for Republicans down ballot.

“They didn’t vote for Hillary; they didn’t vote for Trump,” spokesman Freddy Ford wrote in an e-mail to The Texas Tribune after radio host Rush Limbaugh suggested that the Bushes had voted for Clinton.

Neither George W Bush nor his father, fellow former President George H W Bush, endorsed their Republican Party’s nominee Trump.

Speculation was rife that the Bush senior was planning to vote for Clinton.

-- FULL COVERAGE: US ELECTION 2016

“We are not commenting on the presidential race,” Jim McGrath, a spokesman for George HW Bush, said in an e-mail.

When asked to react to the news, Trump said, “'I think it’s sad.”

“When I see George Bush do that, and look I was very critical of him for getting us into Iraq, which was obviously a horrible decision, and getting out the way Obama got us out was a horrible way to get out too -- the combination.”

But Trump was philosophical about the impact of the ex-President’s vote, adding: “I don’t think it has any impact, frankly. I think it has no impact.”