Trump and Biden easily win new primaries, one step closer to rematch

Joe Biden and Donald Trump won their respective parties’ primaries in Kansas on Tuesday, picking up more delegates as they continue their march toward the Democratic Party. rematch in November’s presidential election.

Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Trump also easily won primaries in Ohio and Illinois on Tuesday. Trump also won the Florida Republican primary. Biden has no chance of winning in Florida because Democrats there canceled the primary, opting to award all 224 delegates to him, a move that would take priority for the sitting president. Trump and Biden are also expected to handily win Arizona’s primary on Tuesday, gaining more support after becoming their respective parties’ presumptive nominees last week.

Races beyond the presidency can provide insight into the nation’s political mood. In Ohio’s Republican Senate primary, Trump-backed businessman Bernie Moreno defeated two challengers, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Clinic Sign up for the baseball team.

Chicago voters will decide whether to impose a one-time real estate tax to pay for new homeless services. California voters will decide who will replace former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who resigned after being pushed out of the Republican leadership.

Trump and Biden have been focused on the general election for weeks, with recent campaigns targeting states that could be competitive in November, not just those holding primaries.

Florida voter Trump cast his vote at an entertainment center in Palm Beach on Tuesday and told reporters, “I voted for Donald Trump.”

Trump rallied Saturday in Ohio, a state that was once a national leader in presidential elections and has been reliably Republican for years. Trump won the state by about 8 points in 2016 and 2020. But there are signs the state could be more competitive in 2024. Last year, Ohio voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion rights in the constitution and voted to legalize marijuana.

Meanwhile, Biden will visit Nevada and Arizona on Tuesday, two states that were among the closest in 2020 and remain top priorities for both campaigns.

Both Trump and Biden performed well in office View the other party as a threat to the United States. Trump, 77, painted Biden, 81, as mentally unsound.President describes his Republican rivals as threat to democracy after trying to overturn 2020 election results His praise for foreign strongmen.

Those themes were evident at some polling locations Tuesday.

“President Biden, I don’t think he knows how to tie his shoes anymore,” said Trump supporter Linda Bennett, a resident of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, not far from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Far.

While she echoed Trump’s arguments about Biden, she criticized Trump’s comments and “his unflappable manner” as being “not presidential at all.” But she said the former president was “a man of his word,” and she said she felt the country and especially the economy had become stronger under Trump.

In Columbus, Ohio, Democrat Brenda Woodfork voted for Biden and shared the framework for the president’s selection this fall.

“It’s terrifying,” she said of the prospect of Trump once again occupying the Oval Office. “Trump wants to be a dictator and talks about making America white again and that kind of nonsense. There’s so much hate out there.”

Bennett and Woodfork agreed that immigration is one of their top concerns, although they offered different ideas as to why.

“The border issue is out of control,” said Bennett, a Republican voter. “I think this is a conspiracy or a plan by the government to get these people to change the whole dynamic for their benefit, so I’m angry.”

Woodfork, a Democrat, said she didn’t mind immigrants “sharing” opportunities in the United States but worried it would come at the expense of “people who have been here their whole lives.”

Trump and Republicans slam Biden Influx of migrants crossing U.S.-Mexico border In recent years, efforts have been made to exploit the problem beyond border countries. Biden has stepped up his counterattack in recent weeks after Senate Republicans rejected an immigration compromise they had negotiated with the White House, only to withhold support after Trump expressed his opposition to the deal. Biden has used the situation to argue that Trump and Republicans are not interested in solving the problem and instead want to anger voters in an election year.

Last year, Trump tied his campaign to legal challenges, including dozens of criminal charges and civil cases in which he faced more than $500 million in fines.

His first criminal trial is scheduled to begin Monday in New York on charges that he falsified business records to conceal hush-money payments. But the judge postponed the trial for 30 days That comes after the recent disclosure of new evidence that Trump’s lawyers said would take time to review.