In the US primaries on “Super Tuesday”, former President Donald Trump prevailed almost everywhere among the Republicans and President Joe Biden among the Democrats. Nikki Haley only managed a respectable success against Trump.
In the primaries on Super Tuesday, both Democratic US President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump took a decisive step closer to being nominated as their party’s presidential candidate.
According to forecasts and partial results, Trump was ahead in at least twelve of the 15 states that voted on Tuesday. It prevailed in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia. With the narrow victory in Vermont, his internal party competitor Nikki Haley achieved only a success that ultimately has a symbolic character.
Trump speaks of a “fantastic evening”
Trump spoke to supporters at his private Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida about a “fantastic evening.” His success is unprecedented: “This is big,” said Trump. In his speech, he praised himself in a familiar manner and praised his work as US President in the White House. At the same time, he 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,” Trump said.
Haley has not yet commented on the results of Super Tuesday or whether she will continue to run for office in the coming weeks. Her surprise victory in Vermont, after a neck-and-neck race against Trump there, was only the second in the Republican primaries to date. Previously, she had won the vote in the capital district of Washington DC just last weekend.
Biden’s victory with one exception
For the Democrats, President Biden won the primaries in all states where voting took place on “Super Tuesday”. He won in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
Only in the small US territory of American Samoa in the South Pacific did he suffer an internal party defeat. There, the 81-year-old was defeated by the largely unknown candidate Jason Palmer by 40 votes to 51, as the party announced there. However, only six delegate votes were cast in the territory for the Democratic nomination convention.
Thanks to the successes on “Super Tuesday,” Biden is already close to the necessary majority of delegate votes there. Against this background, he was already concentrating on the dispute with Trump. Biden said in a statement that he was “determined to destroy our democracy” and take away people’s fundamental freedoms. Trump will “do or say anything to bring himself to power.” The results of Tuesday’s primary election will present the American people with a clear choice, Biden said, asking: “Do we continue to make progress, or do we allow Donald Trump to drag us back into the chaos, division and darkness that is his time in office?”
In the USA, the future president will be elected on November 5th. Based on the results of the previous primaries, there is a lot to be said for a repeat of the 2020 duel between Trump and Biden.