The predictions have come true. As the polls expected, Super Tuesday was a triumph for Donald Trump. The former president has not yet mathematically achieved the virtual nomination, but he has delivered a decisive blow in authority. Trump has left behind all Republican rivals who dared to challenge him. Several withdrew before the primaries even began. Investor Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis threw in the towel in the first round after failing in the Iowa caucuses. Nikki Haley has remained in the fight, but Trump took her out this Tuesday. Now comes the moment of truth, the decisive battle for the White House. As in 2020, he will again run against Joe Biden, who also won the Democrats' Super Tuesday due to the lack of real rivals. The presidential election will take place in 245 days on November 5th.
Trump claimed victory at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, where he called Biden the worst president in history (a position that historians actually attribute to him). “In some ways we are a third world country, we are a third world country on our borders,” he said. Alone on stage with fifteen American flags behind him, he gave a somewhat incoherent speech about the border, inflation, crime, the “China virus”…
Trump has avoided quoting Haley despite calling for party unity. He, the most divisive figure in decades of American politics, has complained that the country is too divided. “We have to win the elections because if we lose the elections we will no longer have a country,” he said in another of his usual sentences. He ended his nearly 20-minute speech with his motto “Make America Great Again”: “We will make our country greater than ever before in history.”
The Biden campaign, for its part, released a statement from the president celebrating his victory and attacking Trump. “Will we continue to move forward or will we allow Donald Trump to pull us back toward the chaos, division and darkness that defined his mandate?” he asks.
Trump won victories in California, Texas and North Carolina, the Super Tuesday states with the most delegates. In reality, he has already won in 12 of the 13 states that have adopted advanced testing and has clearly won in those states. Since the review is quite advanced, particular mentions were Alabama (83%), Oklahoma (82%), Texas (78%), Tennessee (78%), Arkansas (75.6%), North Carolina (74%) and Maine (72) recorded%) and Minnesota (69%). He also had more than 60% of the vote in Colorado, Massachusetts and Virginia. The count is more delayed in California and Utah, and it has not yet begun in Alaska.
Nikki Haley only faced opposition in Vermont, where she won a very close vote with 50% of the vote. It's a state that votes Democratic in presidential elections and has a moderate Republican governor, the most favorable terrain for Haley. So far, the candidate had only won the testimonial Republican primary in Washington DC, in which only about 2,000 members voted. However, Haley was significantly outnumbered in Massachusetts and Maine, New England's other two states.
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Supporters of Donald Trump wait for the former president's speech at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Evan Vucci (AP/LaPresse)
Haley did not appear on election night, which she spent in her home state of South Carolina. It would have been too much to throw in the towel before voting was complete in California and Alaska. Today will show whether he will retreat or continue an impossible fight. This Tuesday, his campaign team released a statement saying that large groups of Republican voters continue to have grave concerns about the direction of the Republican Party under Trump.
Biden faces even less opposition on the Democratic side, with clear wins, most of them by more than 80% or 90% of the vote. As is often the case with incumbent presidents, no major rival from the Democratic Party has offered him any competition. The opposing candidates were marginal: the unknown congressman Dean Philips and the self-help author Marianne Williamson, who even announced her resignation but later resumed the campaign.
It was the least controversial Super Tuesday in history, comparable only to 1996, except that only seven states voted back then. This has nothing to do with the bitter battles between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008, nor with the competition between Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in 2016, or the competition between Biden and Bernie Sanders in 2020. In reality there is no Super Tuesday. Until now I had experienced such an overwhelming (and so predictable) result.
Millions of citizens voted in elections, by mail, through electronic voting screens or even without getting out of their cars, as in some places in California. Despite the facilities, the data suggests that participation was low, likely due to the low results.
Election night began with the release of the results of the Iowa Democratic primary. After the chaos four years ago and under pressure from Biden, the Democratic Party abolished caucuses and its members had been voting by mail since January 12, but did not reserve the result for this Tuesday. Biden received 91% of the vote and won all 40 delegates. It's the fourth time he's competed in Iowa and the first time he's won.
Then, as the review progressed, the states sided with Trump and Biden one by one, sweeping the country from east to west, with the exception of Vermont.
Small warning signs
Despite the overwhelming dominance, there are small warning signs for the two candidates. Biden has achieved more than 80% and 90% support in most states, but in Minnesota the Michigan phenomenon of votes for “non-binding” delegates, a kind of empty vote to oppose Israel's support in the Gaza war, has resurfaced to protest reached around 19%. In addition, there was 8% for the local candidate Dean Philips, so Biden only achieved 70% there. These protest votes also reached 9% in Massachusetts and 8% in Colorado. Biden suffered a resounding defeat in the territory of American Samoa, where businessman Jason Palmer won by 51 votes to 40. American Samoa will not take part in the November presidential election, but will send six delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Even if his advantage is overwhelming for Trump, the question is how many of the voters who vote for Nikki Haley will support him come November 5th. In more moderate districts with higher levels of education, the former president appears to be weaker. The specter that haunts Republicans, and that Haley has repeatedly warned about, is that Trump could once again alienate independent and moderate voters when push comes to shove, as they did in 2018, 2020 and 2022. In several states, Nikki Haley has topped 25%. Aside from 50% in Vermont, the candidate also had some support in Massachusetts (36%), Virginia (35%), Colorado (33%) and Minnesota (30%).
The allocation of delegates is slower due to different allocation rules in each state, which sometimes required waiting for voting to proceed. Nevertheless, both Biden and Trump have made a winning run in this section and are approaching the threshold for the nomination. Trump will have a chance at winning as 161 delegates are up for election on March 12 when Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington state vote. With the Democrats' calendar slightly behind the Republicans', Biden will have to wait another week until March 19 (when Arizona, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio vote) even if he continues to win in every state.
In the Republican case, 874 of the convention's 2,429 delegates are elected. Trump needs 1,215. The Democratic Party will send 1,420 of the 1,968 necessary delegates.
The race is decided, but half the states still have to vote. The remaining primaries will be virtually irrelevant. Of the six that will determine the November election, only Michigan and Nevada have voted so far. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona remain in place. There were no elections in any of the crucial states this Super Tuesday.
Trump, after his speech celebrating his victory in the Super Tuesday primaries at Mar-a-Lago in Palma Beach, Florida. Evan Vucci (AP/LaPresse)
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