Trump Dominates Super Tuesday With Nearly Clean Sweep, Closing In on Biden Rematch

From Newsmax

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Donald Trump swept Republican presidential nominating contests in a swath of states on Tuesday, as projected by Newsmax, brushing aside rival Nikki Haley and marching onward toward a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

Voters in 15 states and one U.S. territory were casting ballots for presidential nominees on Super Tuesday, with polls scheduled to close throughout the evening until Alaska wraps up the day at midnight EST (0500 on Wednesday GMT).

Trump looked headed for wins in Alabama, Arkansas, California,  Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Haley was expected to notch her sole win of the night in Vermont, Newsmax projected. Other races had not yet been called.

Immigration and the economy are leading concerns for voters in both parties, Edison exit polls in California, North Carolina and Virginia showed. A majority of Republican voters in those states said they backed deporting illegal immigrants. Trump, who frequently denigrates migrants, has promised to mount the largest deportation effort in U.S. history if elected.

Katherine Meredith, a 65-year-old homemaker, voted for Trump in California’s Huntington Beach, which includes a significant Trump base despite California’s strong Democratic leanings.

“The border is a complete catastrophe,” Meredith said.

Biden was expected to sail through the Democratic contests, though activists opposed to his strong support of Israel called on Muslim Americans and progressives to cast “uncommitted” protest votes in Minnesota as they did before in Michigan.

The president easily won in Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Iowa, Edison projected.

Trump, who has dominated the Republican campaign despite a litany of criminal charges against him, has won all but one of the contests so far, winnowing a sprawling Republican field of candidates down to two.

While Trump cannot win enough delegates to formally clinch the nomination on Tuesday, another commanding performance would further pressure Haley, a former U.N. ambassador under Trump and a former South Carolina governor, to drop her long-shot bid.

Virginia had been among the states that Haley’s advisers had circled as an opportunity for a potential upset because of higher proportions of the wealthy, college-educated voters who tend to back her over Trump.

The day’s contests will award more than one-third of Republican delegates – and more than 70% of the number needed to secure the nomination.

Trump told Fox that his focus was on Biden, adding: “We’re going to win every state tonight.” (He was projected to lose only in Vermont.)

Trump’s advisers have said they expect him to eliminate Haley mathematically no later than March 19, when two-thirds of the states will have voted. Trump is scheduled to begin his first criminal trial six days later in New York, where he is charged with falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star during his 2016 presidential run.

Biden said in an interview on Power 98 FM, a hip-hop and R&B radio station that serves Charlotte, North Carolina, that the elections were a chance to take on “the extreme division and violence the MAGA Republicans are pushing,” using the acronym for Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan.

Voters were also casting ballots in down-ticket races, including two contests in California to identify potential successors to the late Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and the recently deposed Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

In Arizona, independent U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat, said she would not run for reelection, setting up a battle for her seat that could determine control of the closely divided Senate next year.

Pop megastar Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to vote in a post on Instagram, though she did not endorse specific candidates. Biden’s campaign is hopeful Swift will eventually back his candidacy, as she did in 2020.

Haley’s challenge has highlighted some of Trump’s potential general election vulnerabilities. She has reached 40% in some state contests and argues that shows independents and moderate Republicans harbor unease about a second Trump term.

About one-third of North Carolina voters said Trump would not be fit to serve as president if he was convicted of a crime, while in Virginia, 53% said he would be fit for the office if convicted.

In addition to the New York case, Trump faces separate federal and Georgia state charges for election interference, though it is unclear whether either case will reach trial before November’s election. He also faces federal charges for retaining classified documents after leaving office.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four criminal cases.

Newsmax contributed to this report.

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Nikki Haley Suspends Presidential Campaign: ‘I Have No Regrets’

By Eric Mack  From Newsmax

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Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced the end of her presidential campaign after former President Donald Trump’s near sweep of every state in the GOP primary to date.

“I am filled with the gratitude for the outpouring of support we’ve received from all across our great country,” Haley said in a brief concession speech Wednesday morning in her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. “But the time has now come to suspend my campaign.

“I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that.

“I have no regrets. And although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”

She did not immediately issue an endorsement for Trump, urging her former boss to appeal to her independent and Democrat voters to bring them into the GOP electoral base this November.

“I congratulate him and wish him well,” Haley said.

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that. At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.”

Haley denounced divisive politics after a bitterly divisive break from her former boss.

“As important while we stand strong for the cause of freedom, we must bind together as Americans,” she added. “We must turn away from the darkness of hatred and division. I will continue to promote all those values, as is the right of every American.”

Haley only won Vermont among 15 states that held GOP contests Tuesday night, and only Washington, D.C., among all the other primary and caucus states to date.

Trump has not officially clinched the nomination, but he could next Tuesday as Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington state all hold their delegate-delivering contests to help him get to the 1,215 delegates needed to win.

Haley leaves the 2024 presidential contest having made history as the first woman to win a Republican primary. She beat Trump in the District of Columbia on Sunday and Vermont on Tuesday.

She had insisted she would stay in the race through Super Tuesday and crossed the country campaigning in states holding Republican contests.

“Our national debt will eventually crush our economy,” Haley warned in her concession speech, signaling she supports Trump to defeat President Joe Biden. “A smaller federal government is not only necessary for our freedom. It is necessary for our survival. The road to socialism is the road to ruin for America.

“Our Congress is dysfunctional and only getting worse. It is filled with followers, not leaders. Term limits for Washington politicians are needed now, more than ever.

“Our world is on fire because of America’s retreat. Standing by our allies in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan is a moral imperative. But it’s also more than that. If we retreat further, there will be more war not less.”

Eric Mack 

Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.

Related Stories:

• Trump Super Tuesday Speech: ‘Success Will Bring Unity to Our Country’
• Mike Huckabee to Newsmax: Haley’s Mistake Was Getting in Race

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For more on this story go to: NEWSMAX