With a clear victory in the Republican primaries on Super Tuesday, former US President Donald Trump has all but secured another nomination as presidential candidate. The 77-year-old right-wing populist won on Tuesday in at least twelve of the 15 states in which voting took place against his intra-party rival Nikki Haley. This brings another duel with Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election in November closer.
The 52-year-old Haley achieved a respectable success with a surprising victory in the state of Vermont and thus prevented the right-wing populist from making a breakthrough. Trump was still the clear winner of “Super Tuesday”: He won, among others, in the most populous US states of California and Texas and in other states such as Alabama, Maine, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
The most controversial US politician of the past decades secured the hundreds of delegate votes that he would need in an election as a presidential candidate. On election night, Trump spoke to supporters at his private Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida about a “fantastic evening.” “They don't call it 'Super Tuesday' for nothing.” His success is unprecedented: “This is big,” said Trump.
Haley did not appear in front of the press on election night and did not have any public events on her agenda for Wednesday. It was therefore unclear whether the former US ambassador to the United Nations and ex-governor of the state of South Carolina would stay in the race or throw in the towel.
Many Republicans are urging Trump's last primary rival to give up in order to bring the party together. “I expect Nikki Haley to quit and get out,” Republican activist Kenny Nail said at Trump's election party. “After tonight, there is no path for her to be nominated.” But a Haley spokesman said on Tuesday evening: “There remains a large bloc of Republican primary voters who express great concern about Donald Trump.”
On “Super Tuesday” more than 850 delegates were decided and thus more than a third of the delegates who will ultimately elect the party's presidential candidate. Trump, who is still extremely popular with the right-wing base, started the super election day as the overwhelming favorite. He had previously won all primaries except the Washington DC capital vote.
In order to be chosen as the presidential candidate, a candidate needs the votes of 1,215 of the 2,429 Republican delegates. According to calculations by some US media, Trump now has more than 900 delegates. According to his campaign team, he could get the necessary number of delegates by March 19th.
Biden's Democratic Party also held primaries in 15 states on Tuesday, in which the president scored a series of comfortable victories. An exception was the US territory of American Samoa, where a largely unknown businessman won against Biden in a primary election with fewer than a hundred participants. Biden's re-candidacy is all but certain as he has no serious rivals within his party.
The prospect of a repeat of the 2020 election duel between Biden and Trump for the White House sparks little enthusiasm among US voters – especially since the incumbent president is 81 years old and the ex-president is 77 years old. “Biden is too old, and Trump is a little too crazy,” said voter John Campbell in Quincy, Massachusetts.
After the nationwide primaries, which run until June, Republicans and Democrats will formally elect their candidates at party conferences in the summer, the Republicans in July and the Democrats in August.
According to surveys, despite his presidency marked by scandals and affairs (2017 to 2021), the storming of the Capitol by hundreds of his supporters on January 6, 2021 and his numerous judicial problems, Trump has no bad chances of defeating Biden in November. Many voters believe Biden is too old to run again.
Biden warned on election night that Trump was “determined to destroy our democracy.” The right-wing populist will “do or say anything to bring himself to power.”
