Biden, Trump set up presidential rematch with Super Tuesday win
UNITED States 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 United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival.
Haley’s only win of the night came in Vermont. She will suspend her White House bid later yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources.
Trump’s commanding performance on “Super Tuesday,” when more than onethird of Republican delegates were up for grabs, means he has all but clinched his third consecutive presidential nomination despite a litany of criminal charges.
Trump and Biden quickly trained their focus on each other as the results became clear. In a victory speech at his Mar-aLago 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.
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 organized 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 19 percent with nearly 90 percent of votes counted, according to Edison Research, higher than the 13 percent in Michigan 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 small US territory of American Samoa, 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 matchup 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.
(Reuters)