Robert Gray, 46, a truck driver, said he did not vote on Tuesday ‘because he was busy’ and a reporter who visited his listed address found an abandoned home

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

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.”

How Gray managed to sweep away his competitors with a virtually nonexistent campaign has baffled Mississippi locals. Sam Hall, editor of the local Clarion Ledger, joked that the unknown Gray was like the fictional mastermind Keyser Söze, from The Usual Suspects, and suggested that Mississippi Democrats were “apathetic” about the primary and election.

Three of Mississippi’s last four governors have been Republican, reflecting the state’s strong conservative swing in the past two decades. Before 1990, the state voted Democrat in all but a handful of its gubernatorial elections.

The National Journal suggests it may be a symptom of convenience – the alphabetical ballot runs his name above his rivals – or possible bias against female candidates.

Gray told the Ledger that he supports changing Mississippi’s state flag, which includes the controversial Confederate battle flag, as well as other standard party positions, such as more funding for the state’s struggling schools. He told the Associated Press that people voted for him because “they didn’t know me from anybody else”.

Gray added to the Ledger: “I’m not a person that likes a lot of attention.” He said that his family did not know he was running for office.

The state Democratic party has said it has contacted Gray, and Mississippi public radio reported that the unexpected nominee was quickly shuffled behind closed doors at the party headquarters in Jackson.