Trump’s Super Tuesday Wins Pressure Haley to Drop Out

Donald Trump took an emphatic step Super Tuesday, toward becoming the Republican presidential nominee Tuesday while putting more pressure on Nikki Haley to end her long-shot bid.

Super Tuesday, the biggest day on the nomination calendar, delivered the former president hundreds of delegates that will make it virtually impossible for his last remaining challenger to beat him.

It also paves the way for a historic rematch against President Biden, a pairing Haley regularly points out is viewed undesirably by the majority of Americans.

Close to a third of the U.S. held nominating contests Tuesday. Republicans were voting in 15 states, while Democrats held primaries and caucuses in 15 states, plus American Samoa. Biden was winning most of those states by huge majorities.

Trump’s wins didn’t give him enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee, he could hit that threshold by March 12 or March 19.

Heading into Super Tuesday, Trump had won 10 of 11 contests. The Associated Press called Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia for him shortly after poll closings.

Haley won Vermont, a small liberal-leaning state. Her only previous victory was Sunday in the District of Columbia, a heavily Democratic jurisdiction.

“They call it Super Tuesday for a reason,” Trump told hundreds of supporters here at his Mar-a-Lago compound in a speech that focused heavily on immigration and criticism of Biden.

“Nov. 5 is going to go down as the single most important day in the history of our country,” he said, pointing to the general election.

Haley’s campaign noted her wins, while scoffing at Trump characterizing the party as united. “Today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump,” spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said. “That is not the unity our party needs for success.” The statement didn’t address Haley’s future plans.

Shortly after 11 p.m. ET, Trump had beaten Haley in 595 of 616 counties where the AP estimated that 90% or more of votes had been tallied. Her wins came mainly in Northern Virginia’s close-in suburbs that voted for Biden in 2020.

Trump has an edge over Biden in a number of recent national and battleground state polls, a a reversal of four years ago when the Democratic challenger led the Republican incumbent at this point.

The latest Wall Street Journal poll published last weekend showed voters nationally are more upbeat about the economy, but that is producing only a marginal improvement in views of Biden.

Trump’s campaign ended January with $30.5 million in cash, behind $56 million for Biden. Both are expected to spend considerable time in the coming months fundraising before they start spending aggressively this summer and fall.