Donald Trump easily defeated his closest rival, Nikki Haley, in 15 states’ Super Tuesday primaries on Tuesday, moving him closer to winning the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive year.
Trump won decisively in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, according to rapid projections by The Associated Press. .
The former president is aiming to almost certainly thwart the nomination by performing well across the country, including California, the nation’s most populous state with the most delegates.
Vermont appears to be the state where Haley has the best chance of winning the primary. California results have not yet been released, but as of 9:30 p.m. ET, only about half of the votes had been counted, giving Trump a narrow 1% lead.
Two states, Alaska and Utah, are hosting Republican caucuses.
The Democratic Party also held a primary election, but President Biden, 81, is expected to win a highly lopsided victory against a strong challenger.
President Trump, 77, is scheduled to address the crowd at a watch party at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida (possibly around 10 p.m. ET) once the results are known. is.
Haley, a 52-year-old former South Carolina governor, has not held any public events and was not scheduled to speak Tuesday night.
President Trump is seeking re-election for a second nonconsecutive term amid an election season unlike any in U.S. history, avoiding four criminal charges in an unprecedented case against a former president.
Mr. Trump also received a brutal $83 million defamation judgment in January and a $454 million corporate fraud fine in February in two New York civil suits, and the legal barrage continues. They claimed it was a politically motivated attempt to prevent Trump from taking back the White House.
Trump leads Biden average 2% National polls also show him leading in battleground states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, according to an average of recent polls from RealClearPolitics.
Trump’s first criminal trial is scheduled to begin on March 25 on charges of falsifying business records in 2016 when he paid hush money to a woman. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, is pursuing a new legal theory to circumvent the statute of limitations.
Trump also faces two criminal charges that could go to trial on federal charges in Washington, D.C., and state charges in Atlanta before the November election for contesting Biden’s 2020 loss. It also faces lawsuits.
The former president also faces trial in South Florida on charges of mishandling classified documents. The trial was scheduled to begin on May 20, but is expected to be postponed until July at the earliest.
The former president had previously defeated Haley in eight states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, Michigan, Idaho, Missouri and North Dakota, and one region in the U.S. Virgin Islands, while Haley won. was only in Washington, DC.
