Super Tuesday in the USA
“A fantastic day” – Donald Trump wins primaries, Nikki Haley defeated
Donald Trump, former US President and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, gestures during a speech at a “Super Tuesday” election party in Mar-a-Lago.
© Evan Vucci / DPA
Donald Trump marches through: “Super Tuesday” is particularly exciting in the primary election campaign for the US presidential candidacy. But this time everything seemed clear beforehand – but two results were surprising.
Donald Trump calls for unity among Republicans
On the evening of Super Tuesday, he called for unity in his party. “We have a great Republican Party with enormous talent. And we want unity, and we will have unity, and it will happen very quickly,” said Trump on Tuesday evening at his Mar-a-Lago estate in the state of Florida, with a view to the fight for the presidential candidacy.
The 77-year-old did not directly mention his party rival Nikki Haley. Trump also did not go into detail about the successful results of the Republican primary election duel. “It was a fantastic, fantastic evening, a fantastic day,” he says.
In his speech, Trump, as usual, praised himself and praised his work as US President in the White House. He spoke about the corona pandemic, migration, the Islamic State terrorist militia, Afghanistan and the Taliban, which he described as a “rough force”, and energy policy. At the same time, he fiercely attacked incumbent Joe Biden, blaming him and his Democrats for the country’s alleged decline.
Trump has already broken political norms during his first term in office, alienated international partners and, after losing the election in 2020, did not stop at trying to overturn the election results. If Trump wins the election on November 5th, his policies are likely to become much more extreme. Further US support for Ukraine, which is being attacked by Russia, is then at stake in foreign policy terms, as is US membership in important international alliances such as NATO.
Clock setter for US elections
Anyone who wants to become a presidential candidate in the USA must first prevail in the party’s internal primaries. “Super Tuesday” is considered an important stage in the race for the presidential nomination. 2,429 delegates will meet at the Republican nomination convention in mid-July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. More than a third of all delegate votes were up for grabs on Super Tuesday alone. To win, a candidate must gather at least 1,215 delegates behind them.
In purely mathematical terms, Trump does not yet have his candidacy in his pocket after the important election day, because he has not yet achieved the necessary number of delegates. But purely politically there is no way around him. Nikki Haley has no realistic chance of becoming a threat to Trump – the super election day on Tuesday made that clear once again. Everything currently points to a rematch of the race between Trump and Biden in November. Surveys predict that this is likely to be close.
For Haley, the evening as a whole was a big disappointment. After her only primary election victory on Sunday in the liberal capital district of Washington, she may have hoped for new momentum for “Super Tuesday”. But Trump scored one victory after another. It wasn’t even close in the state of Virginia, which borders the US capital to the north and is home to many people who work in Democratic-leaning Washington. In the states where the most delegate votes were up for grabs on Super Tuesday, Texas and California, Trump also won easily. Now the question arises as to whether the 52-year-old will remain in the race.
Biden is unpopular – but has it easy
“Donald Trump swore he would be a dictator from day one,” warned incumbent President Joe Biden in a statement on election night. The 81-year-old does not have to fear any competition from his party in the race for the candidacy, but he is repeatedly criticized because of his old age. In addition, his popularity ratings are in the basement.
Similar to Trump, “Super Tuesday” was not the flawless march for Biden that both had hoped for. In American Samoa, entrepreneur Jason Palmer prevailed against the incumbent US President. The result hardly plays a role in the party’s internal primaries. In the outlying area with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, which is part of a tiny group of islands in the South Pacific, only six delegate votes were up for grabs. It will still be a nuisance for Biden.