LAST UPDATE | 6 Mar
US PRESIDENT JOE Biden and Donald Trump have swept the state primaries on Super Tuesday, all but cementing a November rematch.
Biden and Trump each won California, Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota and Massachusetts.
Biden also won the Democratic primaries in Utah, Vermont and Iowa.
Trump’s last major rival Nikki Haley won Vermont, denying the former US president a full sweep, but he carried other states that might have been favourable to her such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine, which have large swathes 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.
However, this year’s Super Tuesday was sapped of much of its suspense as Biden and Trump had effectively secured their parties’ nominations before a ballot was cast yesterday. The primary’s biggest day has made their rematch a near-certainty.
Both the 81-year-old Biden and the 77-year-old Trump continue to dominate their parties despite facing questions about age and neither having broad popularity across the general electorate.
The only contest Biden lost yesterday was the Democratic caucus in American Samoa, a tiny US territory in the South Pacific Ocean.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was packed for a victory party.
“They call it Super Tuesday for a reason,” he told the crowd.
“This is a big one. They tell me, the pundits and otherwise, that there has never been one like this, never been anything so conclusive.”
He went on to attack Biden over the US-Mexico border and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Biden did not give a speech but instead issued a statement warning that yesterday’s results had left Americans with a clear choice.
“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.”
Biden is due to deliver the annual State of the Union address to Congress tomorrow, a chance to lay out his campaign platform.
Super Tuesday is traditionally the biggest day in the US for primary elections and caucuses before the actual Election Day in November.
Until yesterday, only one or two states had held primaries or caucuses on the same day.
Yesterday, voters in 15 different states and one territory choose who they want to run for president.
Some states also choose who should run for governor or senator for their state, as well as some district attorneys.
Just as Thanksgiving is usually the fourth Thursday in November, Super Tuesday is almost always the first Tuesday in March.
Includes reporting by Press Association and - © AFP 2024
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say