On the eve of “Super Tuesday”, Nikki Haley defeats Trump in the Washington elections

On the eve of “Super Tuesday”, the day when fifteen US states vote in presidential primaries, practically deciding who will go to the November elections, Nikky Kaley won the election on Sunday. Republican Interior of the District of Columbia (Washington) earning its first win of the 2024 season.

Haley also became the first woman to win the Republican primary in American history. However, Donald Trump has a big lead over Haley and he is likely to face Joe Biden in the November election.

Haley’s triumph stops at least temporarily Donald Trump’s triumph in Republican votes, although the former president is expected to get several hundred more delegates in the Super Tuesday contest.

Despite defeats in the early stages, Haley said she will stay in the fight at least until those races, although he did not want to name any primaries in which he feels confident of winning. After last week’s defeat in her home state of South Carolina, Haley insisted that voters in subsequent states deserve an alternative to Trump, even if he has dominated the campaign so far.

The Associated Press declared Haley the winner after Republican Party officials in the District of Columbia released the results. He obtained the 19 delegates in dispute.

“It is no surprise that the Republicans closest to the dysfunctions of Washington reject Donald Trump and all his chaos,” Haley spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement, noting that Haley became the first woman to win the Republican primary in the history.

Washington, Democratic territory

Washington is one of the most democratic jurisdictions in the country, with only about 23,000 registered Republicans in the city. Democrat Joe Biden won the district in the 2020 general election with the 92% of the votes.

The Trump campaign released a statement shortly after Haley’s victory, sarcastically congratulating her and calling her “Queen of the swamp by lobbyists and DC insiders who want to protect the failed status quo.”

Haley held a rally Friday in the nation’s capital before heading to North Carolina and a number of states with Super Tuesday primaries. She joked to more than 100 of her supporters gathered in a hotel ballroom: “Who says there are no Republicans in the District of Columbia? Please!”.

“We’re trying to make sure we touch every hand we can and talk to every person,” he said.

During his usual campaign speech, in which he criticized Trump for increasing the federal deficit, one attendee shouted: “He can’t win the general election. “He IS crazy.” Haley agrees: She says that she, and not Trump, is capable of preventing Biden’s reelection.

Although during her election campaign she claimed to be an avowed conservativeHaley performed better among more moderate voters and independent trends.

According to AP VoteCast, a poll of more than 2,400 voters conducted for the AP by NORC at the University of Chicago, four in 10 Haley supporters in the South Carolina Republican primary considered themselves moderates, compared to 15% of Trump supporters. On the other hand, 80% of Trump supporters said they were conservative, compared to about half of Haley supporters.

What is Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday is the most important date on the primary calendar and, although hthere is little suspense about finalizing the nominations of the candidates, Republicans are waiting to find out if he is Nikki Haley’s final round against Donald Trump’s favoritismwhile Democrats will measure the protest vote for President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election.

This Tuesday there will be voting in fifteen states, including Texas and California, the two that, due to their population, vote grant a greater number of voting proxies, as well as others of great importance such as Colorado, Virginia, Alabama and Minnesota.

“Super Tuesday is a very important day in the calendar of American electoral politics. For Republicans, 36% of all delegates are elected that day: 874 out of a total of 2,429. Trump needs 1,215, so he can get a big chunk and have his nomination all but sealed,” said David McCuan, a professor at the University of Sonoma (California) and an expert on American politics.

While what happens on Tuesday mathematically doesn’t guarantee Trump’s nomination, politically it could be the last shot he needs after winning every state, including this week in South Carolina, where Haley is home and where she served as governor. for six years. Trump lost only in the District of Columbia this Sunday.

The Democratic primaries

Even though Biden is not officially the nominee, the other two politicians running against him, Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson (who suspended her campaign and then resumed it), They have no chance of harming him.

“For Biden, the primaries are merely symbolic. Barring health problems, he will be the candidate. His task is simply to rally the Democratic Party around him. Whether he will be able to do that remains to be seen,” said Cooper, director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy.

“For Democrats and Biden, Super Tuesday can measure the importance attributed to foreign policy issuesas is happening in Gaza and Israel, in states like Washington and, above all, in Minnesota, where Democrats had difficulty in the last presidential election,” McCuan noted.

That protest vote was significant this week in Michigan, a state with a significant Arab-American population, where there were about 100,000 votes with the “no obligation” option. (equivalent to a blank ballot) as a sign of repudiation of the White House’s management of the war in the Middle East.

This is no minor, since Michigan is considered a “swing state” (swing state): In the 2020 presidential election, Biden beat Trump by a margin of just 154,000 votes, just over two percentage points.

Although it is not official, the re-edition of the dispute between Trump and Biden is already underway with cross accusations on various issues such as economy, foreign policy and, above all, immigration, as demonstrated by the visit that both made to the border last Thursday. with Mexico.

The age of the candidates, a problem

In recent weeks the issue of age has also come back into the spotlight. from both: The 77-year-old Republican asked the 81-year-old Democrat to do so undergo a “cognitive test” because of the “terrible decisions” he makes.

Trump regularly mocks Biden’s verbal blunders, described as “an elderly man with a bad memory” by a prosecutor who was investigating him for hiding classified documents.

Even the former president is prone to making verbal errors: In recent weeks you have mentioned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as leader of Türkiye and once confused former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with her main rival, Haley.