After voting in 15 states and one US territory on Super Tuesday, the 5th of March, US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won their primaries in a landslide, bringing them closer to a historic rematch in November’s general elections, despite low confidence ratings for both candidates, reports Reuters.
Preliminary results show show that Trump won the Republican primaries in 12 states – Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia – knocking former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, the only rival who no longer has a realistic chance of being nominated, out of contention. Her only victory on Tuesday was in Vermont.
Despite the fact that Trump is facing several charges in four criminal cases,
he seems to have almost secured his third presidential nomination. Trump has not pleaded guilty to any of the criminal charges.
Trump’s first criminal trial is scheduled to start on the 25th of March in New York, where he is accused of falsifying business documents to hide hush money payments to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden won most of the Democratic primaries – in the same states as Trump plus Utah and Vermont, including Minnesota, where he was not expected to win because of his handling of Israel and Gaza, and Iowa, where people voted by mail.
He did lose one state, in the American Samoa territory, where businessman Jason Palmer won 51 votes to Biden’s 40.
Few Americans seem to want another election campaign between Trump and Biden – the first re-election battle for US presidents since 1956. Opinion polls show that both Biden and Trump have low voter support.
When the results became clear, Trump and Biden turned their attention to each other.
In his victory speech, Trump turned to Biden’s immigration policy and called him the “worst president” in history. “Our cities are overrun with migrant crime”, he was quoted, although the crime figures do not support this claim.
In his statement, president Biden described Trump as a threat to American democracy, stressing the importance of the election results. Biden presented the American people with a choice between further progress or a return to the chaos, division and darkness associated with the Trump presidency.
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