Super Tuesday 2024: Trump and Biden dominate primary contests, setting stage for rematch
- Donald Trump trounces Nikki Haley, his last rival for the Republican Party’s nomination
- Super Tuesday is the most important day of the 2024 US presidential primary calendar
US President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump swept to victory in statewide nominating contests across the country on Tuesday, setting up a historic rematch in November’s general election despite low approval ratings for both candidates.
Trump won the Republican votes in 14 of 15 states – including delegate-rich California and Texas – brushing aside former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival.
Haley’s only win of the night came in Vermont.
Trump’s commanding performance on “Super Tuesday”, when more than one-third of Republican delegates were up for grabs, means he has all but clinched his third consecutive presidential nomination despite facing a litany of criminal charges.
37:07
What if Trump wins?
Trump and Biden quickly trained their focus on each other as the results became clear. In a victory speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump focused on Biden’s immigration policies and called him the “worst president” in history.
“Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime,” he said, though crime data does not support that assertion.
Haley campaign pushed to the brink after Trump trouncing
Biden again cast Trump as a threat to American democracy.
“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” he said in a statement.
Biden sailed through the Democratic contests, although a protest vote in Minnesota and six other states organised by activists opposed to his forceful support of Israel in its war against Hamas attracted unexpectedly strong results.
The “uncommitted” vote in Minnesota stood at nearly 20 per cent with more than half the estimated vote counted, according to Edison, higher even than the 13 per cent that a similar effort in Michigan drew last week.
Biden nevertheless won Minnesota and 14 other states, including a mail-in vote in Iowa that ended on Tuesday.
He did suffer one loss, in the US territory of American Samoa’s caucus, where entrepreneur Jason Palmer won 51 votes to Biden’s 40, according to the American Samoa Democratic Party.
Another campaign between Trump, 77, and Biden, 81 – the first repeat US presidential match-up since 1956 – is one few Americans seem to want. Opinion polls show both Biden and Trump have low approval ratings among voters.
Immigration and the economy were leading concerns for Republican voters, Edison exit polls in California, North Carolina and Virginia showed.
A majority of Republican voters in those states said they backed deporting illegal immigrants. Trump, who frequently denigrates migrants, has promised to mount the largest deportation effort in US history if elected.
Jason who? Joe Biden loses American Samoa primary
Tuesday’s results intensified the pressure on Haley to drop out of the race, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that she planned to end her presidential campaign. She did not make a public appearance on Tuesday, but her campaign had scheduled an event for early Wednesday morning.
In a statement, her spokesperson said the vote showed “there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump”.
Pop megastar Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to vote in a post on Instagram, though she did not endorse specific candidates. Biden’s campaign is hopeful Swift will eventually back his candidacy, as she did in 2020.
About one-third of North Carolina voters said Trump would not be fit to serve as president if he was convicted of a crime, while in Virginia, 53 per cent said he would be fit for the office if convicted.
Trump is scheduled to begin his first criminal trial on March 25 in New York, where he is charged with falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star during his 2016 presidential run.
In addition to the New York case, Trump faces separate federal and Georgia state charges for election interference, though it is unclear whether either case will reach trial before November’s election. He also faces federal charges for retaining classified documents after leaving office.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four criminal cases.
Biden faces his own weaknesses, including widespread concern about his age. He is already the oldest US president in history.
Biden is due to deliver the annual State of the Union address to Congress on Thursday, a chance to lay out his campaign platform.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
