Super Tuesday: Donald Trump celebrates near clean sweep against rival Nikki Haley

A triumphant Donald Trump has claimed a near-perfect sweep of Super Tuesday for the Republican presidential nomination all but cementing a November rematch with Joe Biden and increasing pressure on the former president’s last major rival, Nikki Haley, to leave the Republican race.

Following a knockout blow to his lone challenger for the Republican US presidential nomination Trump delivered a 20-minute speech at Mar-a-Lago, saying: “We’re going to make America great again, greater than ever before.”

The former President also condemned Biden’s handling of the economy, foreign policy and especially the US-Mexico border.

But he offered little in the way of prescriptions ticking through moments in his administration, several of them more than five years ago.

“We’re going to make America great again, greater than ever before,” he told an adoring crowd.

Biden and Trump each won California, Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alaska, Minnesota and Massachusetts. Biden also won the Democratic contests in Utah, Vermont and Iowa.

Biden didn’t give a speech but instead issued a statement warning that Tuesday’s results had left Americans with a clear choice and touting his own accomplishments after beating Trump.

“If Donald Trump returns to the White House, all of this progress is at risk,“ Biden said. “He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people.”

Haley won Vermont, denying Trump a full sweep, but the former president carried other states that might have been favorable to her such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine, which have large swaths of moderate voters like those who have backed her in previous primaries.

Not enough states will have voted until later this month for Trump or Biden to formally become their parties’ presumptive nominees. But the primary’s biggest day made their rematch a near certainty.

Despite Trump’s near-incumbent status in the race, a significant, if losing, percentage of voters has opted for another candidate in several contests - underscoring some voters’ reservations and the potential general-election challenges ahead. Trump’s last standing GOP challenger, Haley, has pointed to this trend as she has made a case for continuing her campaign.

In many ways, a rematch between President Biden and Trump is effectively underway, and observers and strategists expressed mixed views of what the margins in the GOP contests portend for Trump in November.

Despite Biden’s and Trump’s domination of their parties, polls make it clear that the broader electorate does not want this year’s general election to be identical to the 2020 race.

A new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds a majority of Americans don’t think either Biden or Trump has the necessary mental acuity for the job.

The incumbent and his allies are ramping up criticism of Trump as a threat to democracy, abortion rights and other freedoms, while the ex-president has hammered Biden over immigration and the economy. Trump’s 91 criminal charges, which he has used as a rallying cry in the primary contest, are also expected to factor into the fall campaign.

Trump’s team expects to lock down the nomination by March 19, advisers said. Haley, a former UN ambassador, has only committed to staying in the race through Tuesday, setting the stage for a potentially quick exit.

Recent polling shows that more than 90 percent of registered Republicans back Trump over Biden, who is struggling with low enthusiasm on the Democratic side and cracks in the coalition that delivered him a narrow victory in 2020.

At the same time, the primaries have demonstrated Haley’s appeal to independents and college-educated voters as she lays out a forceful argument against Trump. Super Tuesday will provide more snapshots of who is in Trump’s camp and who may need persuading in the months ahead.

“The next chapter of this race will be about how Trump treats Nikki Haley and her supporters,” said veteran Republican strategist Scott Reed. “He’s on track to be able to unite the party,” Reed added, “but he has to treat the Haley voters with respect.”

Haley faces rising pressure to step aside. Trump warned after his New Hampshire victory that anyone who donated further to his rival would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”

Trump has a long history of abruptly ending his feuds with opponents who change their tune to praise him; he declared his mocking nickname for DeSantis “retired” the day that DeSantis dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed him. When DeSantis criticised the former president in a February call with supporters, however, the Trump team quickly punched back.

It’s not clear how Haley will approach Trump in the long term. Asked Friday if she would keep criticising the GOP’s direction under Trump even if she drops out, Haley said, “I don’t know.” On “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Haley said she no longer felt bound by a pledge to support the eventual nominee, which the Republican National Committee required of all debate participants last year.

George Andrews, a GOP consultant in California, argued that Haley can wield influence even in defeat. “Bernie Sanders lost in 2020, but his influence on Joe Biden’s policy - holy cow,” said Andrews, who worked for a pro-DeSantis super PAC and has now volunteered as a delegate for Haley in California.

Saul Anuzis, a former chair of the Michigan GOP, said Trump would be smart to be magnanimous toward his critics but added, “Trump is going to be Trump.”

Biden ais the oldest president to hold office and Republicans key on any verbal slip he makes. His aides insist that skeptical voters will come around once it is clear that either Trump or Biden will be elected again in November.

Trump is now the same age Biden was during the 2020 campaign, and he has exacerbated questions about his own fitness with recent flubs, such as mistakenly suggesting he was running against Barack Obama, who left the White House in 2017.

“I would love to see the next generation move up and take leadership roles,“ said Democrat Susan Steele, 71, who voted Tuesday for Biden in Maine.

— with AP and Washington Post