Millions of Americans went to the polls yesterday and voted in the primaries in the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
Majority needed
As expected, former President Donald Trump won in almost all but one state. His opponent Nikki Haley won according AP news agency the state of Vermont. She won the city of Washington last week and has won her first state with Vermont.
“Although Trump won in almost all states, he must have a majority of delegates behind him at the party congress in July,” explains America correspondent Erik Mouthaan. The expectation from American media was that Trump would declare himself the winner today because he could no longer be overtaken, but he did not.
Address
Trump did give a speech and spoke of an ‘irrefutable result’. But he didn’t talk about the profits. “It is not clear why he did not declare victory,” says Mouthaan. “His campaign team must have decided they’re going to keep going for a while.”
According to CNN there is actually no other option than for Trump to ultimately win. The American channel calculated that within a week it could be the case that Trump will have a majority of delegates behind him with absolute certainty.
‘Huge problem’
In any case, Trump will have followed with suspicion that Haley won in Vermont. “Haley’s candidacy no longer has a chance of success, but it does reveal that a large number of Republicans have no interest in another four years of Trump in power,” says Mouthaan. “If those right-wing voters stay home during the ‘real’ elections in November, the Republican Party will have a major problem.”
Haley’s team also sees these results as a clear signal that the party is very divided. “We cannot achieve unity simply by claiming that we are ‘united’.”
In Trump’s speech last night, he did not mention Haley’s name.
‘Destroying democracy’
President Joe Biden said in a statement during Trump’s speech that his potential rival is “determined to destroy our democracy.”
Biden himself was also on the ballot yesterday, but that caused no surprises. The Democrat has no serious opponents.