Biden, Trump dominate Super Tuesday races
WASHINGTON, D.C.: United States President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump romped coastto-coast on Super Tuesday, all but cementing an election rematch in November and increasing pressure on the former president’s last major rival, Nikki Haley, to leave the Republican race.
Biden and Trump each won California, Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota and Massachusetts. The president also won the Democratic contests in Utah, Vermont and Iowa.
Haley won Vermont, denying Trump a full sweep, but the ex-leader carried other states that might have been favorable to her, such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine, which have large swaths of moderate voters like those who have backed her in previous primaries.
Not enough states will have voted until later this month for Trump or Biden to formally become their parties’ presumptive nominees. But the primary’s biggest day made their rematch a near-certainty. Both the 81-year-old Biden and the 77-year-old Trump continue to dominate their parties despite facing questions about age and neither having broad popularity across the general electorate.
The only contest Biden lost Tuesday was the Democratic caucus in American Samoa, a tiny US territory in the South Pacific Ocean. Previously unknown candidate Jason Palmer defeated him there, 51 votes to 40.
Haley watched the election results in private and had no campaign events scheduled going forward. Her campaign said in a statement that the results reflected that there were many Republicans “who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump.”
“Unity is not achieved by simply claiming ‘we’re united,’” her spokesman Olivia Perez-Cubas said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in south Florida was packed for a victory party. “They call it Super Tuesday for a reason,” he told the raucous crowd there before attacking Biden over the US-Mexico border and the US’ August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Biden didn’t give a speech but instead issued a statement warning that Tuesday’s results had left Americans with a clear choice and touting his own accomplishments after beating Trump.
“If Donald Trump returns to the White House, all of this progress is at risk,” the president said. “He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people.”
Despite Biden’s and Trump’s domination of their parties, polls make it clear that the broader electorate does not want this year’s general election to be identical to the 2020 race. A new Associated Press (AP)-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds a majority of Americans don’t think either man has the necessary mental acuity for the job.
The days leading up to Tuesday demonstrated the unique nature of this year’s campaign. Rather than barnstorming the states holding primaries, Biden and Trump held rival events last week along the US-Mexico border, each seeking to gain an advantage in the increasingly fraught immigration debate.
After the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday to restore Trump to primary ballots following attempts to ban him for his role in helping spark the US Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the former president pointed to the 91 criminal counts against him to accuse Biden of weaponizing the courts.
“Fight your fight yourself,” Trump said. “Don’t use prosecutors and judges to go after your opponent.”
Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address on Thursday, then will campaign in the key swing states of Pennsylvania and Georgia.
The president faces low approval ratings and polls suggesting that many Americans, even a majority of Democrats, don’t want to see him running again. His easy Michigan primary win last week was spoiled slightly by an “uncommitted” campaign organized by activists who disapprove of his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Allies of the “uncommitted” movement pushed similar protest votes elsewhere, such as in Minnesota, which has a significant Muslim population, which includes its Somali American community. At least 45,000 voters there selected “uncommitted,” which won 19 percent with almost all votes counted. That exceeds the 13 percent of uncommitted voters in Michigan.