US President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, romped coast-to-coast on Super Tuesday, all but cementing a November rematch and increasing pressure on the former president’s last major rival, Nikki Haley, to leave the Republican race.
Mr Biden and Mr Trump each won California, Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota and Massachusetts.
Mr Biden also won the Democratic primaries in Utah, Vermont and Iowa.
Ms Haley won Vermont, denying Mr Trump a full sweep, but the former president carried other states that might have been favourable to her such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Maine, which have large swathes of moderate voters like those who have backed her in previous primaries.
Not enough states will have voted until later this month for Mr Trump or Mr Biden to formally become their parties’ presumptive nominees.
But the primary’s biggest day made their rematch a near-certainty.
Both the 81-year-old Mr Biden and the 77-year-old Mr Trump continue to dominate their parties despite facing questions about age and neither having broad popularity across the general electorate.
The only contest Mr Biden lost on Tuesday was the Democratic caucus in American Samoa, a tiny US territory in the South Pacific Ocean.
Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was packed for a victory party.
“They call it Super Tuesday for a reason,” he told the crowd.
He went on to attack Mr Biden over the US-Mexico border and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Mr Biden did not give a speech but instead issued a statement warning that Tuesday’s results had left Americans with a clear choice.
“If Donald Trump returns to the White House, all of this progress is at risk,” Mr Biden said.
“He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people.”
