“Super Tuesday”
Victory streak for Trump – Haley practically has no chance
Despite various scandals, Donald Trump has great support among the party base. photo
© Evan Vucci/AP
“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.
The victory is likely to annoy Trump, but it will not change the fact that he is virtually certain of his party’s candidacy. The Democratic incumbent Joe Biden, who is running for a second term without real competition, also won his party’s votes – only in the US territory of American Samoa was there a surprise for him.
The magic number for Trump
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. 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.
The mini success for Haley
Trump’s competitor Haley was only able to narrowly beat her opponent in the small state of Vermont in the northeast of the USA. After a neck-and-neck race when the votes were counted, the former US ambassador to the United Nations won in the liberal state and won a good 50 percent after almost all votes were counted. Trump got just under 46 percent, the remaining votes went to other candidates.
For Haley, the evening can still be seen as 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.
According to post-election surveys, Haley performed well across the US, particularly among people with higher education and more moderate Republicans. A poll of voters in the US state of Virginia showed that many Haley supporters mainly voted for the former governor of the state of South Carolina in order to vote against Trump. These Haley supporters could pose a threat to Trump in the presidential election if they end up voting for an independent third candidate or even Biden.
The strengthened ex-president
Trump appeared at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on election night and addressed his supporters. At the time, Haley’s victory in Vermont was not yet known. Trump did not comment on his rival, but called on his party to unite. “We have a great Republican Party with tremendous talent. And we want unity, and we will have unity, and it will happen very quickly,” he said. This should be understood as a dig at Haley. In the past, Trump has often shown himself extremely annoyed by the fact that she doesn’t just throw it away. As long as Haley remains in the race, Trump will have to spend campaign money and time attacking her and cannot focus solely on Biden.
Trump attacked the incumbent in his speech at Mar-a-Lago and accused him of driving the United States to ruin. 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.
The mini clap for Biden
“Donald Trump swore he would be a dictator from day one,” Biden warned 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.