Today is Super Tuasday, the prime day for the two major parties ahead of the November election. No less than 15 states across the United States (including the largest and most significant two – Texas and California) will now elect their party candidate, and give a third of the delegates together – meaning, success today is almost equivalent to winning the primaries.
In the Republican Party, Donald Trump will try to hit Nikki Haley, his last rival in the race. While Haley has not done well up to now and has not won any state (except for the city of Washington D.C.), her insistence on fighting charges Trump a symbolic and an economic price. At the moment, polls predict Trump’s overwhelming success in most states, making it difficult for Haley to continue the race afterwards.
Trump’s race received yesterday a significant boost from the Supreme Court, which overwhelmingly (9-0, including liberal justices) ruled that he should not be disqualified from running in any state. The ruling came after a Colorado state court ruled out Trump from running in the state election, noting the 14th Amendment ban on granting political office to a person who had participated in any “insurrection” – citing the events of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as a insurrection. The Supreme Court ruled that the state has no authority to define an act as a insurrection, and thus turned back also the result of disqualification attempts that began to arise in other states as well.
In the Democratic Party, Biden has no significant opponent, and will almost certainly win more than 80% of the vote. But the elections give voters an opportunity to protest against Biden by a ‘abstention’ vote – whether because of his advanced age, his domestic policy – or, as expressed in the state of Michigan (which has the most significant Muslim minority in America), in protest of his foreign policy, and his support for Israel in its war in the Gaza Strip. A protest that is too broad and significant can have a conscious impact, and we must hope that Biden is strong enough in his principles and his stand with Israel to not bow down before this wind.
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