AUSTIN, TEXAS (Reuters) - Former Republican president George W. Bush and his wife Laura voted neither for Mr Donald Trump, his party's nominee, nor for Mrs Hillary Clinton on Tuesday (Nov 8), but they did vote for Republicans in down-ballot races, a Bush spokesman said.

"They voted 'None of the Above' for president," Mr Freddy Ford said in an e-mail about the couple, who now live in Dallas.

In a break from custom, neither Mr Bush, president from 2001 to 2009, nor his father, former Republican president George H.W. Bush, endorsed the Republican nominee for president, New York businessman Trump.

Mr Jeb Bush, younger brother of George W. Bush and the son of George H.W. Bush, ran against Mr Trump in the acrimonious and insult-laced Republican nominating contest this year.

Mr Trump, in a radio interview on Tuesday, called the former president's decision not to vote for him "sad" - and slammed the latter for his policies while in office.

"I think it's sad," Mr Trump said on the Howie Carr Show on WRKO. "I think it's sad, you know. 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. I don't think it has any impact, frankly. I think it has no impact."