Nikki Haley seems to tell Trump “you're fine in front, but not alone.”

Biden, however, is alone in the Democratic race.

Photo: Deccan Times.

The primary season is all but decided, with three caucuses and primaries last weekend, another on Monday the 4th, and then the massive Super Tuesday, when primary voters in 15 states and the territory of Samoa cast their ballots.

Polls suggested the almost certain probability that former President Donald Trump would win most, if not all, of these races.

Those projections held up and Trump has almost clinched the Republican nomination, but not quite (at least from a mathematical standpoint).

In one of the most recent Republican primaries, in the city of Washington (District of Columbia), Nikki Haley defeated Donald Trump.

This is her first victory over the former president in the 2024 campaign to become the Republican presidential candidate.

Haley, former US ambassador to the UN, obtained 62.9% of the vote compared to Trump's 33.2% and will receive the 19 Republican delegates that were at stake in Washington DC, which will give her 43 delegates nationwide, very behind Trump's 247 before Super Tuesday, to which were added respectively Haley's 46 and Trump's 748 on March 5.

Haley also won the state of Vermont and ended up with 89 delegates, before deciding (she has not yet officially done so, but she has formally announced it) to end her candidacy.

When could D. Trump's nomination be secured in the primaries?

(On the Democratic side, none of Biden's primary opponents, Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson, have won a single delegate or look likely to do so, so there's no real math to calculate.)

What are the basic numbers for the primaries, from the point of view of delegates to both National Conventions?

The numbers are simple: A candidate needs to win a majority of the 2,429 delegates to the Republican National Convention to become the party's nominee.

Those delegates are generally awarded on a state-by-state basis, based on the results of primaries and state caucuses.

The tricky part is that Republican rules allow states to decide how to award their delegates and take very different approaches, from awarding them proportionally based on the votes a candidate gets to allowing a candidate to receive all of the delegates if they win in the entire state.

Current situation of the candidates for the presidential candidacy:

These are unofficial results, in some states like Alaska the final and official count will be known for the month of April, but the accuracy of the estimates is very high.

How close is Trump to clinching the nomination after Super Tuesday? 

It's close, at the end of Super Tuesday, just over half of the delegates to the Republican convention have been awarded, so it was technically possible for one candidate to get a majority by then.

But Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis won enough delegates in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early states to prevent Trump from doing so, even with a huge victory like he did on March 5.

What are the possible scenarios that arise from the

The polls are correct, there have been no major discrepancies between the estimates and the actual votes, and in reality there is only one scenario: Trump is within striking distance of reaching the nomination, even more so with the announced retirement of N. Haley.

Right now, national polls show him with almost 80% of the vote.

That would give him the majority of delegates, regardless of the exact rules by state.

Even better for him: Many states, including California, award all their delegates to the winner if he or she gets more than 50% of the vote, as Trump is expected to do.

There are some Super Tuesday states that award their delegates proportionally, but he would still win almost all the delegates if he does as well as the polls suggest.

In total, Trump won 91.7% of the available delegates until the end of Super Tuesday.

When could I get the nomination and what would have to happen?

Mathematically, the earliest possible date is March 12, when Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington will vote.

If Haley fails to get over 20% of the vote, she may not even receive delegates in states where the rules make it relatively easy for her.

More realistically, Trump would lock in March 19, when Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio cast their votes.

Why did Nikki Haley remain in the race until her announced resignation on March 6, without having any tangible opportunities to defeat D. Trump?

There are three important factors why Haley would have remained in the race for her nomination until her recent resignation:

1. Have a valid hierarchy within the party, with at least a symbolic number of delegates (89) to the National Convention of the Republican Party, which allows the nomination in the event (not as remote and unlikely as many think) that D. Trump is legally disqualified from being a presidential candidate.

In other words, to legitimize his position as plan B.

2. Acquire the necessary political visibility to now be a probable candidate in the 2028 elections. The big question in this regard is whether, in the event of Trump's victory, there would really be elections in 2028, or whether the entire electoral system and The capitalist constitutional order/rule of law in the United States (as we know it today) was headed for irreversible catastrophe.

3. Refute the concept, widely spread by Trump and his supporters, that his control over the Republican Party and its tens of millions of members and sympathizers is absolute and that there are no other political options within the American right and far-right.

These and other reasons not only kept Haley (until her announcement to end it) in an uphill race, but also those who financed her primary race, especially the super-PAC SFA Fund Inc.,1 who have been spending an average of $200,000 a day in the campaign of the former governor and former ambassador to the UN.

This financial effort has been maintained until yesterday, thanks to the contribution of large Republican donors who are vertically opposed to Trump, among whom are Ken Griffin, executive director of Citadel, who donated five million dollars to the super-PAC in December;

Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot, who donated just over $500,000, and David Tepper, a well-known investor and owner of the Carolina Panthers professional football team, who donated more than $1 million.

In total, nine donors gave at least $1 million to the SFA Fund in the past six months.

Oil tycoon Harold Hamm also contributed about $100,000.

But Americans for Prosperity Action, a conservative political network founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, announced that it will no longer contribute to Nikki Haley's presidential campaign, and many other big donors could follow the same course after the results of Super Tuesday.

How are things going in the Democratic Party?

This electoral cycle of the Democratic Party is not going as well as it would like.

Raising money for the electoral campaign has had results that can be classified as positive, and that is a very important indicator in the United States elections.

It must be clear that in reality the Democratic primaries are simply to comply with a procedure, since it is clear that J. Biden will be the party's candidate.

However, the current president's approval ratings are worse than Trump's at the same point in his administration, and there are serious doubts about Biden's physical and mental capacity to govern another four-year term.

Both leading candidates face legal challenges (Trump much more so than Biden, of course), and several states have filed motions to bar Trump from their slates.

In Biden's case, there are so-called “unpledged delegates,” Democratic delegates who do not commit to supporting him at August's Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

It is important to remember that general elections include, but are not limited to, presidential elections.

The executive branch (Presidency) and the legislative branch (Congress) are elected separately.

The presidential election must take place on the same day throughout the country;

Congressional elections occur along with presidential elections, every four years, and as part of the so-called midterm elections, two years later.

Congress has two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives.

For congressional elections, members of the House of Representatives, who are elected to two-year terms, must be at least 25 years old, have been U.S. citizens for at least seven years, and be residents of the state they represent.

Senators, who are elected for six years, must be at least 30 years old, have been citizens of the United States for a minimum of nine years, and reside in the state they represent.

State governors must meet several requirements, depending on each state.

In the November 5 elections, 13 governors will also be elected (11 from states and two from territories, in this case Puerto Rico and Samoa), along with the president/vice president binomial, 33 senators and 435 representatives.

Currently, the Democratic Party controls the Presidency and the Senate (48+3 independents who almost always vote aligned with Democratic senators, compared to 49 senators from the Republican Party), while the Republican Party controls the House of Representatives with an advantage of six seats and the state governorships (27 vs. 23).

Some comments on what has been seen to date in the November 5 general election campaigns in the United States:

• There is almost complete coincidence that the contenders for the Presidency will be current President Joseph R. Biden, who is seeking re-election, and former President Donald J. Trump.

The only limitations for any of them would be the legal situation with the many pending charges (mainly Trump) and physical and mental health problems (mainly J. Biden).

In my opinion, J. Biden's mental problems are related to age, he forgets things or confuses them in a framework of senility, while D. Trump's mental problems are much worse (although less visible), since He is completely crazy, with marked signs of paranoia, sadomasochism, other serious “toasts” and perversions.

• N. Halley's victories over Trump in the District of Columbia (Washington city) and the state of Vermont, although only symbolic, imply several important things.

The first, that, even with a large lead, Trump was not alone in the race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination.

Although Halley decided to withdraw from the primaries after March 5, she already has many dozens of delegates to the Republican Convention to be held in Milwaukee, which makes her legitimate to opt for her party's presidential candidacy if Trump is invalidated, which is not It is as remote a possibility as it appears to be at first glance.

• The decision of the Supreme Court of Justice to authorize the candidacy in Colorado and prevent other states from joining in to prevent it, was unanimous, that is, it was negotiated.

There are three members of the Supreme Court who are decidedly anti-Trump (Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketenji Brown Jackson), who would not vote without obtaining a promise to vote from the six far-right justices on other issues related to accusations against Trump, for example, on the issue of the impunity of a former president, related in this case to the 14th Amendment, for the acts of the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Trump's judicial soap opera is far from over.

He also has to do with the fact that the border states (especially Texas and Arizona) will not be able to have their own immigration policy;

That is, the federal will prevails over that of the states in matters of federal jurisdiction.

• The issue of “uncommitted” delegates of the Democratic Party is one of those that could cause J. Biden to lose re-election and must be followed closely.

• As can be seen below in tables on the origin of the donations of each of the main candidates, it is very important to note that no powerful company in the military industrial complex is represented in these lists,2 which indicates that they are giving the money to through intermediaries and other non-transparent ways.

• The next primaries are of the greatest importance, but it is quite clear that if everything were as it is today, the two candidates for president would be Trump and Biden, always with the reservations noted above.

Grades

1.- Political action committees (PACs) include separate segregated funds (SSF), non-connected committees and super-PACs.

SSFs are political committees established and administered by corporations, unions, membership organizations, or trade associations.

These committees may solicit contributions only from individuals associated with a related or sponsoring organization.

Unattached Committees are not sponsored by or connected to any entity and are free to solicit contributions from the general public. Super-PACs are independent political committees that may receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, unions, and other PACs for the purpose of funding electoral expenses and other independent political activities.

Some, like MAGA, Inc., are completely controlled by one individual in this case D. Trump.

These PACs, especially super-PACs, are those that provide funds to a candidate, and without them in the United States there are no important resources for an electoral campaign.2.- The main donors of:

• J.Biden

• D. Trump

• N. Haley

(With the former ambassador and former governor dropping out of the race, only a smaller portion of these donors will support Trump against Biden. They are anti-Trump Republicans. It is even possible that some of this money will now go to supporting Biden, despite partisan barriers)