Trump eyes Super Tuesday sweep as Republican rival Haley vows to fight on
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A third consecutive nomination for Trump would set up a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - Donald Trump aimed to deliver a Super Tuesday (Mar 5) knockout blow to his lone challenger for the Republican US presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, as 15 states hold Republican contests on the biggest voting day of the primary season.
The former president, who has dominated the Republican campaign from the start despite his litany of criminal charges, has swept all but one of the contests so far, winnowing a sprawling Republican field of candidates down to two.
While Trump cannot win enough delegates on Tuesday to formally clinch the nomination, another dominant performance would further pressure his remaining rival. Tuesday's contests will award more than one-third of Republican delegates - and more than 70 per cent of the number needed to secure the nomination.
The first polls were due to close at 7pm EST in Vermont and Virginia, with voting wrapping up in Alaska at 12am EST.
A third consecutive nomination for Trump would set up a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November's election. Biden is expected to win Tuesday's Democratic contests easily, though activists opposed to Biden's Israel policy are calling on Muslim Americans and progressives to vote "uncommitted" in Minnesota in protest.
Haley, a former UN ambassador under Trump, has faced mounting questions about how long she will continue her long-shot campaign, particularly after losing her home state of South Carolina 10 days ago.
Her campaign did not schedule any public events on Super Tuesday or beyond.
"As much as everybody wants to go and push me out, I'm not ready to get out yet," she told Fox News in an interview.
Trump was leading Haley in every Super Tuesday state where public polling data was available, according to poll tracking website 538.
But Haley's allies see a narrow window of opportunity to win states such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Vermont, which have more of the wealthy, college-educated voters who tend to support her candidacy.
Trump told Fox in a separate interview that his focus was on Biden, adding: "We're going to win every state tonight".
While Trump will stage an event on Tuesday night at his Florida resort, Biden has no separate campaign events planned.
TAYLOR SWIFT WEIGHS IN
Pop megastar Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to vote in a post on Instagram, though her reach may have been limited by an extensive outage that affected that social media site and Facebook, both of which are owned by Meta Platforms Inc META.O.
"I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent YOU into power. If you haven't already, make a plan to vote today," Swift wrote in a post that did not mention any specific candidate by name.
Voters were also casting ballots in down-ticket races, including two key contests in California to identify potential successors to the late Democrat Dianne Feinstein in the Senate and recently deposed Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the House of Representatives.
Trump's advisers have said they expect him to eliminate Haley mathematically no later than Mar 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.
Haley's challenge has highlighted some of Trump's potential vulnerabilities in a general election. She has reached 40 per cent in some state contests and argues that shows independents and moderate Republicans harbour unease about a second Trump term.
"She's a solid alternative to Trump," Mac Seidel, a retired IT worker from Southlake, Texas, said at a Haley rally on Monday night. "She's supporting the moderates out there."
Seidel said he voted for Trump twice, but his conduct around the Jan 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by his supporters and the unprecedented 91 criminal charges facing the former president make him an unacceptable choice now.
Trump faces both federal and 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, as well as this month's hush-money trial.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in every case and claimed without evidence that they are part of a Democratic conspiracy to prevent him from returning to power, leveraging his legal troubles to raise money and maintain supporters.
Katherine Meredith, a 65-year-old homemaker, voted for Trump in California's Huntington Beach, which includes a significant Trump base despite California being deeply Democratic.
Meredith, a two-time Trump voter, said she didn't even consider Haley: "I don't like how she's dividing the Republican Party. I think a lot of her issues are Democratic. I think she's causing a big divide."
