Former President Donald Trump and President Biden are a giant step closer on Wednesday morning to a 2024 general election rematch, after the Republican and Democratic Party frontrunners ran the table on Super Tuesday as 16 states from coast to coast held presidential nominating contests.
"They call it Super Tuesday for a reason. This is a big one," Trump said in a primary night victory speech in front of a large group of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. "This has been a day that we've been waiting for."
And looking ahead to his all-but-certain general election battle with Biden, Trump highlighted that "November 5th is going to go down as the single most important day in the history of our country."
Biden, in a statement on the Super Tuesday results, said "today, millions of voters across the country made their voices heard—showing that they are ready to fight back against Donald Trump’s extreme plan to take us backwards."
"Every generation of Americans will face a moment when it has to defend democracy. This is our fight," he emphasized.
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Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel, a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, told Fox News as the Super Tuesday votes were being tabulated that "it's pretty clear both parties are ready to get to the general election."
While Trump didn't clinch the 2024 Republican nomination on Tuesday, the former president was on course to capture the vast majority of the 854 Republican delegates up for grabs, moving him significantly closer to locking up the nomination over his last remaining rival – former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
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And while the former president didn't mention Haley in his speech, pointing to his primary victories over his rival, he touted that "there's never been anything so conclusive."
Trump's convincing victories in 14 of the 15 states holding GOP nominating contests - Haley narrowly edged the former president in Vermont - are also turning up the volume on calls by fellow Republicans for Haley to end her White House bid.
"I do think it is time for her to step aside and let the party rally fully around Donald Trump so that he can take Joe Biden on and beat him in November," Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders - a former Trump White House press secretary who has endorsed the former president - said in an interview on Fox News "America Reports" Tuesday afternoon.
Haley didn't sound like she was dropping out during a "Fox and Friends." interview on Tuesday morning.
"As much as everybody wants to go and push me out, I'm not ready to get out yet. I'm still sitting there fighting for the people that want a voice," Haley spotlighted.
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Her campaign said that Haley watched primary night returns with staff as they huddled in her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. The candidate didn't deliver any speech or release a statement.
Haley, who had said she would remain in the race at least through Super Tuesday, has remained mum on any plans going forward.
But in a statement Tuesday night, the Haley campaign said "we’re honored to have received the support of millions of Americans across the country today, including in Vermont where Nikki became the first Republican woman to win two presidential primary contests."
And pointing a bunch of Super Tuesday states where Haley captured anywhere from a quarter to a third of the vote in the GOP contests, the campaign argued that "today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump. That is not the unity our party needs for success. Addressing those voters’ concerns will make the Republican Party and America better."
Kochel, who remains neutral in the nomination battle, called the Super Tuesday results "a pretty dominant night for Trump."
He said "this thing is getting pretty close to being wrapped up" and that "it's decision time" for Haley.
With more large states like Georgia, Florida, Illinois and Ohio among the eight holding primaries on March 12 and 19, Trump is expected to reach the 1,215 delegates needed to clinch the nomination by the middle of this month.
Trump's campaign predicted in a memo last month that even under the most favorable modeling for Haley, the former president would clinch the nomination by March 19.
Fox News contributor Karl Rove, the veteran GOP strategist and political mastermind behind former President George W. Bush's two presidential election victories, emphasized that it was "a strong night for Donald Trump."
But pointing to the support Haley was able to garner, Rove said "the high command at Team Trump should be concerned about unifying the Republican Party… there's still some work to be done."
And Kochel noted that the Trump and Biden campaigns "are going to be fighting over these Nikki Haley voters."
Biden, who faces nominal challenges from Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, easily romped in the Democrat contests.
The president was on course to win nearly all the 1,420 Democratic delegates up for grabs on Tuesday and move much closer to the 1,968 needed to lock up renomination.
But Biden did suffer a setback, as the Fox News Decision Desk projected he would lose the Democratic caucus in American Samoa to extreme long-shot candidate and entrepreneur Jason Palmer.
Palmer was expected to win 4 delegates, to the president's two on the Pacific Ocean island territory. It was Biden's first defeat in the 2024 Democratic nominating calendar.
More troubling for Biden was the continued discontent at the ballot box over his support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
A week after 13% of Democratic primary voters in Michigan cast ballots for "uncommitted" in protest of the president's backing of Israel, nearly 20% voted "uncommitted" in Minnesota's primary.
Fox News' Remy Numa contributed to this report.
