Nikki Haley claims only Vermont as former US president dominates Republican primaries from east to west coasts
Super Tuesday: Former US president Donald Trump speaks during a Super Tuesday watch party at Mar-a-Lago. Photograph: Doug Mills/The New York Times
On the Democratic side, president Joe Biden also swept the party votes as the incumbent candidate and will be expected to elaborate on what he is depicting as an elemental battle for democracy at his State of the Union address on Thursday evening. But Tuesday was the night which made official the second coming of Donald Trump.
“In some ways. we’re a third world country- we’re a third world country at our borders,” he told them. “I’m pretty confident – I have known her most of my political life – that she’s a team player,” senator Lindsey Graham said when asked if he thought she would honour her GOP pledge to endorse Trump.Ralph Norman, the lone Republican from the House to endorse Haley, when asked if this marked the end of her political future within the party, replied: “Absolutely not.”
Those question marks began to appear early in the evening, when the polls closed in Virginia at 7pm. Had you jumped into your car in downtown Washington and headed due west, in the grinding commuter traffic, the path would have taken you gradually towards the deepening true red of Trump country.