The United States president, Democrat Joe Biden, and his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, who served from 2017 to 2021, secured predictable victories in the primaries across five more states: Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, and Arizona.
According to projections from Fox, NBC, and CBS after polling stations closed in Arizona, both contenders won large majorities in their respective primaries. Biden attracted around 89 percent support, while Trump reached about 76 percent. In Arizona, a key state with a sizable Latino electorate, Trump showed some vulnerability. Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley received around 20 percent of the vote, despite withdrawing earlier in the month following Super Tuesday losses.
Biden achieved margins between 87 and 90 percent today, though Kansas saw a protest or noncommittal vote surpassing 10 percent, aimed at sending delegates to the convention who would be disloyal to the party line. In Ohio, Biden faced a 13 percent share for his challenger, Dean Phillips.
The protest vote, though modest, has appeared in primaries across the Midwest and reflects dissatisfaction with the president’s stance on the Gaza conflict.
Trump faced no opposition in the Republican primaries and led with about 75 percent in Kansas and 89 percent in Florida. Behind him were two candidates who had already suspended their campaigns, Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, and Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. Despite that, Haley surpassed ten percent support overall and reached 22 percent in Arizona. These numbers underscore ongoing challenges for Trump in garnering broad Latino support, even as he continues to demonize immigrants.
Biden held campaign events in Nevada and Arizona to roll out a Latino outreach initiative called Latinos for Biden, a plan to mobilize Hispanic voters. From El Portal restaurant in Phoenix, the president recalled Trump’s 2016 remark labeling Mexicans as rapists at the start of his first presidential bid, noting that the candidate still scapegoats Latino voters, who make up roughly a quarter of Arizona’s electorate. Biden asserted that listening to them matters and that their votes are desperately needed.
In Florida, Democrats did not celebrate presidential primaries this year after the state party only listed Joe Biden as the candidate on the ballot, thereby awarding him all 225 delegates at stake in that contest.
Trump already holds about 1,623 delegates from those five states combined, while the Democratic contest continues to finalize allocations in Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, and Arizona, where Biden remains in the running for additional delegate counts.
A week ago, Biden and Trump were effectively the presumptive nominees for their respective parties, having reached the minimum delegate thresholds of 1,968 for Biden and 1,215 for Trump. Official nominations will occur at the party conventions: the Republican gathering is scheduled for July 15 to 18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, followed by the Democratic convention from August 19 to 22 in Chicago, Illinois. [CITATION: Projections from major networks reflect the current delegate tallies and convention timelines]