Trump, Biden dominate Super Tuesday contests as they march toward rematch

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump swept to victory in statewide nominating contests across the country on Tuesday, setting up a historic rematch in November’s general election despite low approval ratings for both candidates.

Trump won the Republican votes in a dozen states – including delegate-rich California and Texas – brushing aside former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, his lone remaining rival, who no longer has a viable path to the nomination. Her only win of the night thus far came in Vermont, Edison Research projected.

After a commanding performance across 15 states where more than one-third of Republican delegates were up for grabs on Super Tuesday, Trump had all but clinched his third consecutive presidential nomination, despite facing a litany of criminal charges.

Trump and Biden trained their focus on each other as the results became clear. In a victory speech delivered at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida, Trump focused on Biden’s immigration policies and called him the “worst president” in history.

“Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime,” he said, though crime data does not support that assertion.

In a statement, Biden again cast Trump as a threat to American democracy.

“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” Biden said.

Biden had been expected to sail through the Democratic contests, though a protest vote in Minnesota organized by activists opposed to his forceful support of Israel attracted unexpectedly strong results.

The “uncommitted” vote in Minnesota stood at nearly 20% with more than half the estimated vote counted, according to Edison, higher even than the 13% that a similar effort in Michigan drew last week. Biden nevertheless won Minnesota and 14 other states, including a mail-in vote in Iowa that ended on Tuesday.

He did suffer one loss, in the U.S. territory of American Samoa’s caucus, where entrepreneur Jason Palmer won 51 votes to Biden’s 40, according to the American Samoa Democratic Party.

Another campaign between Trump, 77, and Biden, 81 – the first repeat U.S. presidential matchup since 1956 – is one few Americans seem to want. Opinion polls show both Biden and Trump have low approval ratings among voters.

Immigration and the economy were leading concerns for Republican voters, Edison exit polls in California, North Carolina and Virginia showed.

A majority of Republican voters in those states said they backed deporting illegal immigrants. Trump, who frequently denigrates migrants, has promised to mount the largest deportation effort in U.S. history if elected.

Katherine Meredith, a 65-year-old homemaker, voted for Trump in California’s Huntington Beach.

“The border is a complete catastrophe,” she said.

Tuesday’s results will only intensify the pressure on Haley to drop out of the race. She did not make a public appearance on Tuesday, and her campaign has not scheduled any events going forward.

In a statement, her spokesperson said the vote showed “there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump.”

BIDEN, TRUMP BOTH SHOW WEAKNESSES

Voters were also casting ballots in down-ticket races.

In California, Democratic U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial, advanced to the general election to succeed the late Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. His opponent will be former baseball player Steve Garvey, a Republican who finished ahead of Democratic U.S. Representative Katie Porter.

California’s electoral system, in which the top two candidates advance regardless of party, prompted Schiff’s campaign to employ an unusual strategy: he ran advertisements designed to boost Garvey among Republican voters, figuring that Garvey would likely be a weaker opponent in November than Porter would be in the Democratic-leaning state.

In North Carolina, Trump-endorsed Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson won the Republican nomination for governor. Robinson, who would be the state’s first Black executive, has drawn criticism for harsh comments about LGBTQ people, women and Muslims.

He will face Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein in what will be one of the most hotly contested governor races in the country.

Pop megastar Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to vote in a post on Instagram, though she did not endorse specific candidates. Biden’s campaign is hopeful Swift will eventually back his candidacy, as she did in 2020.

Haley’s challenge has highlighted some of Trump’s potential general election vulnerabilities. She has reached 40% in some state contests, performing particularly well among independent, well-educated and suburban voters who could play a crucial role in battleground states in November.

About one-third of North Carolina voters said Trump would not be fit to serve as president if he was convicted of a crime, while in Virginia, 53% said he would be fit for the office if convicted.

Trump is scheduled to begin his first criminal trial on March 25 in New York, where he is charged with falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star during his 2016 presidential run.

In addition to the New York case, Trump faces separate federal and Georgia state charges for election interference, though it is unclear whether either case will reach trial before the Nov. 5 election. He also faces federal charges for retaining classified documents after leaving office.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four criminal cases.

Biden faces his own weaknesses, including widespread concern about his age. He is already the oldest U.S. president in history.

At a glance: Super Tuesday states and Republican delegate counts

VIRGINIA
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 48

Virginia is an open primary state that allows registered voters to participate in either primary, which could have boosted Haley’s results given her relative strength with independent voters compared to Trump. Trump had been leading Haley by nearly 49 percentage points, according to a polling average by FiveThirtyEight. In the 2020 general election, Biden won the state by roughly 10 percentage points.

NORTH CAROLINA
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 74

North Carolina was watched closely for signs of each candidate’s strength in one of the potential battleground states that could decide the general election. Trump won the state in the 2020 election against Biden by just over a single percentage point. The state allows voters who are unaffiliated with a party to participate in any primary they choose, which was seen as potentially lifting Haley’s performance.

OKLAHOMA
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 43

Oklahoma is one of two states where every county voted for Trump in 2020. The other was West Virginia. A Feb. 4 Morning Consult poll showed Trump beating Haley by 77 percentage points in Oklahoma’s primary contest.

TEXAS
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 161

Opinion polls showed Trump to be an overwhelming favorite in Texas’ primary contest, and beating Biden by four percentage points in November. With immigration a major ballot issue, Trump and Biden appeared in dueling visits to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas on Feb. 29.

TENNESSEE
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 58

Opinion polls had shown Trump was likely to get an easy win over Haley in Tennessee, a state he also won in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.

MAINE
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 20

Trump led Haley by 58 percentage points in Maine according to a Feb. 19 poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll. Maine, one of the country’s least racially diverse states, has a semi-open primary that allows unenrolled or independent voters to vote in either the Democratic or Republican contest without having to sign up with the party. Biden beat Trump in Maine by roughly nine percentage points in 2020.

ARKANSAS
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 40

Trump beat Biden in Arkansas by roughly 27 percentage points in 2020 and is expected to have an even greater lead this year, according to an Oct. 4 Emerson College poll.

ALABAMA
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 50

Trump had a huge lead over Haley in polls in Alabama, a state he also easily won in the 2020 general election. The state was thrust to the center of the U.S. reproductive rights debate after its high court ruled on Feb. 16 that frozen embryos created by in vitro fertilization treatments should be considered children, leaving Republicans scrambling to contain the public backlash.

MASSACHUSETTS
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 40

Trump lost Massachusetts, which has a small Republican Party, by two-to-one margins in the last two general elections. But he had been expected to easily win the primary against Haley. Unaffiliated voters, who comprise 3.1 million of the state’s 4.9 million registered voters, could choose to vote in any primary on Tuesday.

COLORADO
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 37

Trump remained on the Colorado primary ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday blocked states from disqualifying candidates for federal office under a constitutional provision involving insurrection, reversing a state decision that would have excluded him from the ballot.

CALIFORNIA
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 169

According to Republican Party rules in California, a candidate who wins more than half of primary votes receives all of the state’s 169 delegates. If neither candidate wins over 50% of the votes, delegates will be awarded proportionately based on the statewide vote. In the general election, Biden is expected to easily win the state.

VERMONT
Race call: Haley wins
Republican delegate count: 17

In liberal Vermont, the Republican Party is more moderate than in other states. Its Republican governor, Phil Scott, endorsed Haley, who benefited from independents voting in the state’s open primary. A Feb. 19 University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll had Trump beating Haley by 30 percentage points. Biden won Vermont by over 35 percentage points in 2020.

MINNESOTA
Race call: Trump wins
Republican delegate count: 39

Opinion polls show Trump has overwhelming support among Republicans in Minnesota, where Biden is polling slightly ahead of Trump in the general election. Minnesota three-term Democratic congressman Dean Phillips was on the ballot as a long-shot primary challenger to Biden, but Biden easily won.

UTAH
Republican delegate count: 40
The polls closed at 10 p.m. EST (0300 GMT on Wednesday).

This year, Utah’s Republican Party opted to hold a caucus and presidential preference poll to determine the party’s nominee instead of a state-funded primary. In a state where Trump beat Biden by roughly 20 percentage points in 2020, a January poll from Dan Jones & Associates showed him beating Haley by 27 percentage points on Super Tuesday.

ALASKA:
Republican delegate count: 29
The polls closed at 12 a.m. EST on Wednesday (8 p.m. AKST on Tuesday / 0500 GMT on Wednesday).

Alaska has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1964. Trump won by 10 percentage points in the 2020 general election, the smallest Republican margin since 1992. There was no public polling for the Trump-Haley matchup ahead of the primary.