Biden, Trump to rack up wins as Super Tuesday moves them closer to rematch

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump began racking up early wins as states across the country held Super Tuesday elections, moving them closer to a historic rematch despite a lack of enthusiasm from many voters. The results could ramp up pressure on Nikki Haley, Trump's last major rival, to leave the race.

Super Tuesday features elections in 16 states and one territory from Alaska and California to Vermont and Virginia. Hundreds of delegates are at stake, the biggest haul of the race for either party.

Biden and Trump won Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Biden also won the Democratic primaries in Massachusetts, Vermont and Iowa.

While much of the focus is on the presidential race, there are also important down-ballot contests. California voters will choose candidates who will compete to fill the Senate seat long held by Dianne Feinstein. The governor's race took shape in North Carolina, where Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein will face off in a state that both parties are fiercely contesting ahead of November. And in Los Angeles, a progressive prosecutor is attempting to fend off an intense reelection challenge in a contest that could serve as a barometer of the politics of crime.

The spotlight, however, remains on the 81-year-old Biden and the 77-year-old Trump, who continue to dominate their parties despite both facing questions about their age and neither commanding broad popularity across the general electorate.

The earliest either can become his party's presumptive nominee is March 12 for Trump and March 19 for Biden. But, in a departure from most previous Super Tuesdays, both nominations are effectively settled, with Biden and Trump both looking ahead to a reprise of the 2020 general election.

We have to beat Biden he is the worst president in history, Trump said Tuesday on Fox & Friends.

Biden countered with a pair of radio interviews aimed at shoring up his support among Black voters, who helped anchor his 2020 coalition.

If we lose this election, you're going to be back with Donald Trump, Biden said on the DeDe in the Morning show hosted by DeDe McGuire. The way he talks about, the way he acted, the way he has dealt with the African American community, I think, has been shameful.

Despite Biden's and Trump's domination of their parties, polls make it clear that the broader electorate does not want this year's general election to be identical to the 2020 race. A new AP-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research poll finds a majority of Americans don't think either Biden or Trump has the necessary mental acuity for the job.

Both of them failed, in my opinion, to unify this country, said Brian Hadley, 66, of Raleigh, North Carolina.

The final days before Tuesday demonstrated the unique nature of this year's campaign. Rather than barnstorming the states holding primaries, Biden and Trump held rival events last week along the US-Mexico border, each seeking to gain an advantage in the increasingly fraught immigration debate.

After the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on Monday to restore Trump to primary ballots following attempts to ban him for his role in helping spark the Capitol riot, Trump pointed to the 91 criminal counts against him to accuse Biden of weaponising the courts.

Fight your fight yourself, Trump said. Don't use prosecutors and judges to go after your opponent.

Biden delivers the State of the Union address Thursday, then will campaign in the key swing states of Pennsylvania and Georgia.

The president will defend policies responsible for "record job creation, the strongest economy in the world, increased wages and household wealth, and lower prescription drug and energy costs, White House communications director Ben LaBolt said in a statement. LaBolt also drew a contrast to Trump's priorities that he described as rewarding billionaires and corporations with tax breaks, taking away rights and freedoms, and undermining our democracy.

Biden's campaign called attention to Trump's most provocative statements that evoked Adolf Hitler by declaring that immigrants are poisoning the blood of the US and suggesting flippantly that he would serve as a dictator on his first day back in the White House.

Trump recently told a gala for Black conservatives that he believed African Americans empathized with his four criminal indictments. That drew another rebuke from Democrats around the country for comparing personal legal struggles to the historical injustices Black people have faced in the US.

The former president has nonetheless already vanquished more than a dozen major Republican challengers and now has faces Haley, his former UN ambassador. She has maintained strong fundraising and notched her first primary victory over the weekend in Washington, DC, a Democrat-run city with few registered Republicans. Trump scoffed that Haley had been crowned queen of the swamp.

We can do better than two 80-year-old candidates for president, Haley said at a rally Monday in the Houston suburbs.

Trump's victories, however dominating, have shown vulnerabilities with influential voter blocs, especially in college towns like Hanover, New Hampshire, home to Dartmouth College, or Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is located, as well as areas with high concentrations of independents. That includes Minnesota, a state Trump did not carry in his otherwise overwhelming Super Tuesday performance in 2016.

Seth De Penning, a self-described conservative-leaning independent, voted Tuesday morning in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, for Haley, he said, because the GOP needs a course correction. De Penning, 40, called his choice a vote of conscience and said he has never voted for Trump because of concerns about his temperament and character.

Still, Haley winning any Super Tuesday contests would take an upset, and a Trump sweep would only intensify pressure on her to leave the race.