US elections: With Indian-origin leader Nikki Haley's departure from the US presidential race, former President Donald Trump now remains the sole Republican contender on his way to secure his third consecutive presidential nomination for the November elections, effectively setting up a historic rematch with his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Trump, known for his fiery speech and overly aggressive rhetoric, is on track to reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination later this month after establishing a commanding lead over Haley in all the primaries and caucuses held so far. He only lost the primary in Vermont and the District of Columbia to Haley.
The sheer dominance of Trump's presidential campaign, even among his Republican rivals, is an interesting phenomenon given that he is facing a litany of criminal charges, including trying to overturn the results of the 2020 elections and inciting a mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. He is facing 91 criminal charges, but the ex-president turned those obstacles into an advantage among Republican voters, by arguing that the Justice Department was politicised and he was framed for a "witch-hunt".
Trump first entered the presidential race in 2016, running against Hillary Clinton and becoming the 45th President of the United States. In 2020, he ran against Biden but was defeated. As Trump goes for his third bid, most polls show him with a good chance of returning to the White House over Biden, who has faced criticism over his foreign policies and old age.
How did Trump muscle his way to the nomination?
Trump has maintained a tight grip on the Republican Party and bulldozed a field of more than a dozen challengers, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Indian-American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who more or less shared his firebrand way of politics. The competition faced much interest when DeSantis gave a well-received keynote speech and challenged Trump for the nomination, but ultimately he pulled out after a poor show.
Trump already enjoys universal recognition, being a celebrity reality TV star with the support of an unshakeable base of loyalists and a disciplined team. He retained the support of many early-state Republican voters who saw him as an incumbent, believed he was wrongly denied the White House four years ago based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and was unfairly targeted by federal and state prosecutors.
Other voters skeptical of his personal conduct or legal jeopardy supported his policy ideas and believed he would be best suited to defeat Democratic President Joe Biden in November. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a longtime and fierce critic of Trump's personal conduct, endorsed him on Wednesday.
His legal woes have only pumped him up, both rhetorically and financially, as Trump's campaign made him an object of sympathy to Republican voters. "A tranche of them are people that came back to him as a result of the weaponization of Biden's government against him because they just innately know that's wrong," said Roy Bailey, a Texas-based donor who backed DeSantis in this year's race.
DeSantis and Haley were reluctant for months to reproach him - and even stood by him in the face of criminal and civil charges. At the same time, Republican voters’ top concerns – the economy and border security – were the issues where he was traditionally the strongest. However, Haley's challenge, which lasted the longest, showed some vulnerabilities - that a substantial number of the GOP dislikes Trump.
As Trump approaches a series of court cases for the rest of the year and a possible conviction, it looks like they could drag out past the election, which can enable Trump to pardon himself if elected.
Trump's almost unrivaled performance
Trump finished Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses with a 30-percentage point victory that set a Republican record for the state without an incumbent in the race. A long list of his Republican rivals started dropping out, including South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and former Vice President Mike Pence, leaving only Haley at the end.
Trump went on to defeat her in New Hampshire and then her home state of South Carolina and swept all but one state - Vermont - on Super Tuesday, the biggest primary day of the year. Unlike in 2016, when Trump's path to the nomination seemed improbable as he challenged more experienced politicians, this time around it started to seem inevitable long before any votes were cast.
Many voters have echoed Trump's repeated assertions that he is being targeted in the courts by his political enemies. His rivals for the nomination found themselves defending Trump from the cases against him, not wanting to draw blowback from his enthusiastic supporters. “He's for the people. He is not being bought out by all the other government officials who are corrupt. And he has done nothing but good for our nation,” said Scot Stebbins Sr., one of his supporters.
Trump went ballistic for this year's campaign - posting rants and insults on his social media network, cracking jokes and vilifying his rivals and enemies while speaking against immigration and foreign policy problems. He recently created a furore in Europe by saying that he would actively encourage Russia - a fierce rival of the West - to attack NATO member-countries if they failed to spend enough on defence.
Despite this, he drew large crowds as he campaigned in key states ahead of the primaries. He has appeared before cheering crowds decked out in “Make America Great Again” hats, buttons, socks and other items bearing his face, as well as T-shirts with his mug shot when he surrendered on charges that he illegally schemed to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
Trump's way ahead
With Trump on an apparent path to be the Republican nominee and the same for Biden on the Democratic side, it appears the nation is headed to a rematch from 2020. A new AP-NORC Center 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.
Some 58 per cent of Americans would be very or somewhat dissatisfied with Trump winning the Republican nomination, according to a December survey from the poll, which found a similar proportion of dissatisfaction (56 per cent) for Biden winning the Democratic nomination.
As Trump has won over voters in the early primary states, he has laced his speeches and statements with lies about fraud in 2020, cast his legal troubles as a political plot to interfere with the November vote and promised “retribution.” He refers to the people imprisoned for their roles in the insurrection as “hostages.”
However, it is not as if Trump's worries are over. Polls aggregated by the website FiveThirtyEight show that more than half the country (52.2 per cent) holds an unfavorable view of Trump with only 43.4 per cent viewing him favorably, meaning that he may struggle to win over independent voters and others who are not part of his natural right-leaning base.
A litany of criminal charges
In precise terms, Trump's legal problems include four criminal cases in which he faces 91 counts, a civil complaint and a subsequent defamation case in which a jury found him liable for sexual abuse, and a $355 million fraud verdict against his businesses. He is expected to spend weeks or months in a courtroom fighting those cases that may end up in a conviction.
Some crucial moments came up - such as when Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump in March last year on charges pertaining to falsifying records to hide hush-money payments to an adult film star. He was also disqualified from the state ballots of Colorado and Maine, before the US Supreme Court on March 4 restored him to the presidential primary ballots.
Trump adopted another unusual, norm-breaking strategy by refusing to debate his Republican rivals in any of the Republican debates, gambling that voters would not punish him for doing so. He was proven right as other candidates spent much of the time denouncing one another while largely giving him a pass.
The former president's message has been resoundingly embraced by many Republican voters. “It’s totally nuts. Most defeated presidents don’t come back and run. There is no reason to think he should have won the nomination, especially this fast,” said Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
(with inputs from agencies)
ALSO READ | Nikki Haley, Indian-origin leader, drops out of US Presidential race after Trump sweeps 'Super Tuesday'
