President Biden and former President Donald Trump won commanding victories across nearly all the states holding Democratic and Republican nominating contests on Super Tuesday, according to CBS News projections, solidifying the likelihood of a general election rematch between the two in November.
Both notched wins in delegate-rich states like California, Texas, Virginia and North Carolina, the largest prizes out of the 16 states and one U.S. territory reporting results on Super Tuesday. Exit polls showed Trump leading former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley among broad segments of the GOP electorate, with voters saying immigration and the economy were their most important issues.
Haley denied Trump a clean sweep of the Super Tuesday contests with a victory in Vermont’s Republican primary, just her second win of the primary season.
Trump has accumulated more than 1,050 delegates so far and could clinch a delegate majority next week.
Super Tuesday states award more than a third of the delegates available across the entire nomination process, giving them outsized influence in shaping the state of the race. The heavy concentration of primary contests dates back to 1988, and no Republican since then has won the presidential nomination without winning a majority of states on Super Tuesday.
Trump celebrated the election results in remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, telling a group of supporters that “they call it Super Tuesday for a reason.” Mr. Biden did not speak publicly, but said in a statement that his likely general election opponent is “determined to destroy our democracy” and “driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people.”