As of: March 5, 2024, 9:36 p.m
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Trump is heading for what could be a decisive victory in the US primaries.
The ex-president’s team wants to “focus now on Joe Biden”.
Washington, DC - Donald Trump is on track to continue his march to the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday (March 5).
A vote will be held in 15 states to award more than a third of the party's delegates, and it remains to be seen how quickly Republicans will rally behind the former president.
Trump has won all but one election so far and is expected to win Super Tuesday, a normally tense moment in the primary calendar that has become less exciting due to the former president's dominance.
But despite Trump's near-status in the race, a significant, if inferior, percentage of voters have opted for another candidate in several contests - underscoring the reservations of some voters and the potential challenges in the US election.
His last remaining GOP challenger, Nikki Haley, pointed to that trend as she argued for a continuation of her campaign.
Even before Super Tuesday, the US election is shaping up to be another duel between Trump and Biden
In many ways, a renewed battle between Presidents Biden and Trump is well underway, and observers and strategists expressed mixed views about what the margins of victory in the Republican primaries mean for Trump in November.
The incumbent and his allies have increasingly criticized Trump as a threat to democracy, abortion rights and other freedoms, while the former president has attacked Biden over immigration and the economy.
Trump's 91 criminal charges, which he used as a hook in the primaries, are also expected to carry over into the fall election campaign.
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Trump's team expects to finalize the nomination by March 19, aides said.
Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, has only committed to staying in the race until Tuesday, setting the stage for a potentially quick exit.
Recent polls show more than 90 percent of registered Republicans prefer Trump over Biden, who is struggling with low Democratic enthusiasm and cracks in the coalition that gave him a narrow victory in 2020.
At the same time, the primaries have shown that Haley has appeal among independents and college-educated voters as she presents a compelling argument against Trump.
Super Tuesday will show who is in Trump's camp and who may still need convincing in the coming months.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks to a crowd at a GOP event Friday at the Madison Hotel in Washington.
© Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post
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Trump vs. Haley: On Super Tuesday, the primaries are about votes for 874 delegates
“The next chapter of this race will be about how Trump deals with Nikki Haley and her supporters,” said veteran Republican strategist Scott Reed.
“He is well on his way to unifying the party,” Reed added, “but he must treat Haley voters with respect.”
The biggest prize up for grabs on Tuesday is California, where Trump has a good chance of taking home all 169 delegates if he receives more than 50 percent of the vote.
Delegates confirm their choice by voting for their candidate at the Republican National Convention in July.
California Republicans previously awarded delegates to the winner of each congressional district, but Trump's allies successfully pushed last year to pass new rules that they believed would help Trump quickly collect the 1,215 delegates he wanted at the national level to secure the nomination.
Many states that vote on Super Tuesday have a winner-take-all rule, but the details vary.
The states voting on Tuesday account for about 874 delegates and will test Trump and Haley's strengths in very different electorates - from red stronghold Texas to battleground North Carolina to solid-blue Massachusetts, where the Republican population is more likely is moderate.
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and the territory of American Samoa will also vote.
The Republican primaries will take place in North Dakota on Monday.
Trump team confident of victory in US primaries: “Our focus is now on Biden”
The Trump team says he could win the nomination as early as March 12 and, even with the most generous modeling for Haley, based on her best-ever result in New Hampshire, will reach the target by March 19.
On Saturday, Trump won the primaries in Michigan, Missouri and Idaho.
“Republican voters have delivered overwhelming victories for President Trump in every single primary race, and this race is over,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
“Our focus now is on Joe Biden and the general election.
Former President Donald Trump at a rally Saturday at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC.
© Scott Muthersbaugh/The Washington Post
At a rally Saturday in Raleigh, North Carolina, before traveling to Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine, Haley continued her sharp criticism of Trump in front of an enthusiastic crowd.
She said his comments about Russia showed he was "willing to side with a criminal" and complained that it was "not normal" to call opponents "vermin," as Trump had done.
At his own rally in North Carolina this weekend, Trump directed most of his fire at Biden, focusing on the southern border, which attendees repeatedly cited as their top concern.
However, he wasn't done with Haley yet, calling her "bad news" and "very average."
One attendee, 67-year-old John Wayne Lambeth of Winston-Salem, said Haley should get out and tell her supporters, "I'm 100 percent behind Trump." Another, 64-year-old Ben Hamilton of Lexington, said Haley try to “be a killjoy.”
But Hamilton also said he wanted to hear how Trump would “bring the Republicans together.”
Trump “dominant” among Republicans
Haley has remained in the race to express her dissatisfaction with a confrontation between Trump and Biden, arguing that more voters deserve a chance to support a GOP alternative.
She won 43 percent of the vote in New Hampshire and 40 percent in her home state of South Carolina, pointing to those results as evidence of widespread hesitancy toward Trump, even though he leads among nearly every GOP demographic.
In South Carolina, where Haley served as governor, she had the strongest support in urban, educated and wealthy areas, although Trump still led in the suburbs.
In the national exit polls, she was ahead by nearly 10 points among college graduates and 25 points ahead among independents.
Her team has argued that Super Tuesday states with similarly open primaries - where non-Republicans can vote - offer more favorable terrain.
Haley's coalition, which relies heavily on independents, does not indicate that a large portion of Republicans will turn against Trump in November, said Charles Franklin, who directs Marquette Law School polls for the 2024 race.
The latest Marquette National Poll, released in February, found that 7 percent of registered Republicans would vote for Biden over Trump if they had to choose between those options - slightly less than the 9 percent of registered Democrats who voted for Trump would choose.
“He is dominant in the party, but there are also minority opinions in the party that keep Haley in the game,” Franklin said.
Polls predict close race between Trump and Biden
Trump gained a larger lead over Haley last week in Michigan, where he won 68 percent of voters compared to Haley's 27 percent.
That suggests his lead in the primary could grow as the race nationalizes and moves to places where Haley hasn't campaigned heavily, according to some political observers.
However, independent pollster Richard Czuba found that Haley received a third of the vote in places like Oakland County and Kent County.
“That’s where Donald Trump lost the 2020 election in Michigan,” he said, “because those suburban voters came out in droves like they didn’t in 2016.”
It's hard to say how Haley voters there will vote in November, he said.
For some, “we don’t know where they’re going to go because they don’t know where they’re going to go.”
Still, many Republicans rejected the Haley team's argument that the primary results were a "flashing warning sign for Trump in November."
Constantin Querard, a GOP consultant in battleground Arizona, once traveled around the state collecting signatures urging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run because he believed he would be strongest at the top of the ballot and his clients would support on the lower ballots.
But he said he doesn't see the votes for Haley as a warning sign, pointing to recent general election polls in swing states.
“Trump wins,” he said simply.
Other polls show Biden in the lead, but consistently show a close race.
How does Haley react to Trump?
In the GOP race, Haley is under increasing pressure to step aside.
Trump warned after his victory in New Hampshire that anyone who continued to donate to his rival would be “permanently banned from the MAGA camp.”
Trump has a long history of abruptly ending his feuds with opponents who change their tone to praise him;
he declared his derisive nickname for DeSantis “withdrawn” the day DeSantis dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed him.
However, when DeSantis criticized the former president in a phone call with supporters in February, the Trump team quickly hit back.
It's not clear how Haley will deal with Trump in the long run.
Asked Friday whether she would continue to criticize the direction of the GOP under Trump even after she leaves office, Haley said, "I don't know." On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Haley said she feels no longer bound by the pledge to support the potential candidate that the RNC required of all debate participants last year.
George Andrews, a GOP consultant in California, argued that Haley could exert influence even if he lost.
“Bernie Sanders lost in 2020, but his influence on Joe Biden's policies is holy crap,” said Andrews, who worked for a pro-DeSantis super PAC and is now a volunteer delegate for Haley in California.
Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan GOP chairman, said Trump would be wise to be magnanimous toward his critics, but added: "Trump will be Trump."
Scott Clement and Dylan Wells contributed to this report.
LeVine reported from Greensboro, NC
To the authors
Hannah Knowles
is a national politics reporter at The Washington Post covering campaigns.
She previously reported for the Post's general division.
Marianne LeVine
is a national political reporter for The Washington Post.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on March 4, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.