Washington, Mar 5 (EFE).- Republican Donald Trump and Democrat President Joe Biden are tipped for a US election re-match in November with both sweeping their respective party primaries on Super Tuesday.
Trump demonstrated that his Republican rival and former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, will not be able to compete with him at the Republican convention in July as he surpassed 900 delegates on Super Tuesday, approaching the 1,215 needed for the candidate nomination.
Haley has accumulated 53 delegates and only managed to beat Trump in the state of Vermont on Super Tuesday, and at the weekend in the District of Columbia, so Trump could be declared the party’s winner next week.
Trump took the two large baskets of Super Tuesday delegates: the majority of the 161 up for grabs in Texas, obtaining 78 percent of the votes, and of the 169 in California, with more than 70 percent.
In other southern states he took big wins with around 83 percent in Alabama and 76 percent in Arkansas, as well as in key states such as Virginia (63 percent), North Carolina (74 percent) and Minnesota (69 percent), showing a dominance among conservatives not seen in decades.
However, the results also revealed Trump’s weaknesses, as a third of the conservative electorate voted against him in states such as Colorado and Virginia – more urban, moderate and diverse, a percentage even larger among women.
The latest polls give Haley better results in a hypothetical presidential contest against Biden, compared to the support for Trump, showing there is a large number of undecided voters eight months out from the election, and that if the former Republican president wants to win he must appeal to a more centrist and diverse electorate.
Trump said of Tuesday’s results that “there’s never been anything so conclusive.”
In his speech from his Mar-a-Lago mansion, he said the night had been “amazing” but that “we have a very divided country. We have a country [where] a political person uses weaponization against his political opponents.”
He spoke almost exclusively about immigration, spouting hoaxes and inaccuracies about migrants.
“They want open borders and open borders are going to destroy our country. We need borders and we need free and fair elections,” said the 77-year-old, who continues to sow his disagreement of the outcome of the 2020 election that Biden won.
Meanwhile, Biden dominated the Democrat primaries without any major rivals, taking wins above 80 percent in almost all states.
In a statement, he warned of the consequences of Trump continuing to gain strength “He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people. He is determined to destroy our democracy,” Biden said, adding that a Democratic vote is a vote for a “free and fair America.”
Biden had a glimpse of the impact that his support for Israel and his lukewarm condemnation of its offensive on the Gaza Strip could have in November.
The “uncommitted” blank protest ballot came in second place in states such as Alabama and Tennessee, with 6 percent support in the first case and 8 percent in the second, adding to the 13 percent in Michigan in last week’s primaries.
Furthermore, as EFE was able to verify in the voting centers this Super Tuesday, the apathy of young people in mobilizing for the octogenarian president is evident at the polls and could be repeated in November.
The missing voice on Tuesday was Nikki Haley, the only one not to speak and Trump’s only rival left in the Republican race. She won the District of Columbia over the weekend and scored her only Super Tuesday victory in Vermont. EFE
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