A few days before the so-called Super Tuesday, former US President Donald Trump further expanded his dominant lead in the Republican presidential race with primary election victories in three states. The 77-year-old defeated his party rival Nikki Haley by a clear margin in votes in Idaho, Michigan and Missouri on Saturday, as US media unanimously reported.
In Missouri in the Midwest, the right-wing populist was able to secure all 54 delegates in the state, according to forecasts from US broadcasters such as CBS and NBC. In Idaho in the northwest of the USA, Trump also won all 32 delegates.
In Michigan, at a major party meeting, he won all 39 delegate votes cast that day. The state in the north of the USA had already held separate primaries on Tuesday in which 16 delegates were at stake. Trump won twelve delegates, Haley only four.
Trump is thus further expanding his lead over the former US ambassador to the United Nations in the Republican presidential race. Despite his many legal problems, the ex-president, who is very popular with the right-wing base, has won every primary election so far. It is now considered almost certain that Trump will win the national primary and thus run for the Republicans in the presidential election on November 5th.
The decision could come next Tuesday: On Super Tuesday, Republicans will hold primaries in 15 states, including the most populous US states, California and Texas. Haley is expected to throw in the towel should she perform unsuccessfully again that day.
The primaries for President Joe Biden’s Republicans and Democrats run until the beginning of June. The Republican nomination convention will take place from July 15th to 18th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There, the delegates elected in the primaries will formally vote on the candidate.
According to a poll published on Saturday, Trump would have a good chance of defeating Biden in the fall presidential election. In the survey by pollsters at Siena College on behalf of the New York Times, the ex-president got 48 percent and the incumbent only 43 percent.
Particularly bitter for Biden: 47 percent of those surveyed are very dissatisfied with his work – the highest figure in this series of surveys in his entire presidency. Only one in four respondents believed that the USA was currently moving in the right direction. More than twice as many said Biden’s policies had harmed them rather than helped them.
Many voters are dissatisfied with Biden’s economic policies, even though the US economy is doing very well overall with robust growth and low unemployment. However, the high inflation of the past few years has done massive damage to the president, even though the rise in consumer prices has fallen significantly again.
Many voters also believe that Biden, at 81, is too old to run again. The US Democrat is already the oldest president in US history and repeatedly causes a stir with slips of the tongue and mix-ups.
