Trump has been working for months to turn back primary challenges and get Republicans behind his comeback campaign for the White House after four years out of power.

That goal was sealed after he scored a sweeping victory in the Super Tuesday primaries.

President Biden was already the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee even before he brushed off nominal primary challenges to his reelection bid.

Now, Biden hopes to utilize Thursday night’s State of the Union address to kick off his presidential campaign against Trump, a contrast he hopes will rally voters behind him despite concerns about his age and other potential political weak spots.

Here are some takeaways:

What will Joe say in SOTU?

Biden has a rare national platform to make his opening argument to Americans for why he deserves four more years in the White House.

Look for Biden to boast about his achievements and to pitch himself as uniquely qualified to lead the country and the world through a challenging period — and paint a sharp contrast with the chaos under Trump.

The stakes are quite high.

With voters on both sides of the aisle concerned about Biden’s age, any perceived gaffe could harden pre-existing opinions that he is just too old to serve.

On the other hand, Biden has the opportunity to cut through the political noise and demonstrate his often-underrated political skills.

Who benefits from the general election matchup being set?

Pundits have been puzzled by the persistently high number of Americans who did not believe that Biden and Trump would actually be their parties’ candidates for the White House.

Democratic strategists in particular believe that Biden could benefit from the matchup between the two men now being set in stone.

Team Biden believes that Democratic voters may start focusing on Trump, a candidate many of them loathe and is perhaps the biggest motivator for them to get behind anyone running against him.

Can Trump rally Republican critics who backed Nikki Haley?

For Trump, the immediate challenge is to win over Republicans who supported Nikki Haley in the just-completed primary fight.

“Clearly there are a quarter to a third of the people who voted in the Republican primaries … who simply won’t accept him or don’t wan’t him back in the White House,” Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, said on CNN.

If past is prologue, Trump will likely seek to project strength with the Republican base as way to bring “traditional Republicans” back in the fold, Sabato added.

But Republican strategist Doug Heye noted that it won’t be a cakewalk for Trump, given that he deliberately sought to push away Haley supporters by declaring them “permanently banned” from his MAGA movement.

“That is dumb,” Heye told the News. “Anyone wearing a ‘Permanently Banned’ T-shirt is unlikely to return to the fold of the person insulting them.”

It appears that Trump’s mounting legal woes may not be the massive political headache they once seemed certain to pose.

So far, Trump’s indictment on 91 felonies and his four looming criminal trials have not damaged his political standing.

If anything, he has succeeded in using the trials to rally his supporters behind the idea that he is being unfairly targeted by liberal prosecutors.

Can Biden unify a fractured Democratic coalition?

The incumbent president has a unity problem of his own.

Biden is facing serious dissatisfaction with Democratic voters, some of whom are disenchanted over his handling of the economy or blame him for the influx of migrants across the southern border and into northern cities.

The most visible split is over Biden’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. Critics have mounted modestly successful campaigns to register opposition to the war in states like Michigan, where 13% of Democrats shunned him to vote for “uncommitted” delegates.

Polls show Biden suffering from relatively low approval with Latinos, Blacks and young voters, all key portions of the Democratic base.

That’s a flashing danger sign for the incumbent. But it’s also an opportunity for Biden to win back voters who traditionally back the Democrat in the end.

Sabato notes that the White House needs to do a much better job communicating his policy achievements on issues like the economy and abortion rights.

“They have got to use the campaign and the State of the Union address to make it clear what they have actually done,” he said.

After being crushed from coast to coast on Super Tuesday, the former UN ambassador urged Trump to work to earn the support of her and the coalition of mostly moderate and suburban Republicans who backed her campaign,

“It’s now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those who did not support him,” Haley said. “This is now his time for choosing.”

Haley spoke the morning after Trump rolled to an impressive victory on Super Tuesday, winning 14 out of 15 states including giant California and Texas and running up the score with about 80% of the vote in many primary states.

“The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” Haley said. “Although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.”

Haley doubled down on her unshakable support for a muscular foreign policy and aid to Ukraine, which many fellow Republicans want to abandon in the face of a Russian invasion.

She leaves the race with wins in tiny, deep-blue Vermont and Washington, D.C. along with respectable showings of more than 40% in independent-minded New Hampshire and about the same in her home state of South Carolina.

Haley quoted former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, another trailblazing female politician: “Never just follow the crowd.”

Haley threw in the towel after spending the last several weeks ramping up her once-tepid criticism of Trump.

She has slammed the twice-impeached, four times-indicted ex-president as unelectable and a danger to democracy, barbs that spurred Trump to angrily deride her as a Republican in name only and worse.

Haley refused to commit to backing Trump in the general election even though she joined other GOP candidates in signing a pledge to endorse the eventual party nominee.

In what amounted to a concession speech Wednesday, Haley softened those attacks significantly, suggesting she may be laying the groundwork to endorse Trump at some point.

“I wish him well. I wish anyone well who would be America’s president,” she said. “Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us.”

Haley was the first major candidate to challenge Trump after he announced his run for a third straight Republican nomination.

She was later joined by heavyweights like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a raft of other candidates including Sen. Tim Scott, ex-N.J. Gov. Chris Christie and upstart entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

But Trump effectively cleared the field by eviscerating DeSantis with months of withering attacks. None of the other candidates really caught fire with the GOP voters, many of whom had backed Trump twice before.

Trump cleaned up with a big win in the Iowa caucuses, where Haley fell short of DeSantis in third place. Haley also fell short in New Hampshire, a state that looked like her best shot at an upset.

That set up a blowout win for Trump in South Carolina, a result that effectively delivered a knockout blow to Haley even though she soldiered on through Super Tuesday.

With Trump rolling to very lopsided wins over Haley in delegate-rich states from coast to coast, there were few signs that Republican voters are having second thoughts about handing the nomination to the man who lost to Biden last time.

Trump was poised to declare victory yet again from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida while Haley remained behind closed doors at her home in South Carolina.

Here are several takeaways:

Trump steamrolls from coast to coast

Trump won in big states and small, in the Deep South and Northeast and pretty much everywhere in between.

The MAGA leader strengthened his already vice-like grip on the GOP nomination race by sweeping to wins even in potentially problematic states like Virginia and Massachusetts, which boast more independent-minded and better-educated Republican electorates.

The vast Super Tuesday map with elections in 15 states, including sprawling powerhouses like California and Texas, always favored Trump, who commands legendary loyalty among the Republican base.

But Haley might have hoped that she could bolster her standing with affluent voters in places like Colorado, northern Virginia or suburban Houston. That simply didn’t happen, at least not in the numbers she needed to trip up Trump.

The only state Haley had won on Super Tuesday was tiny, deep-blue Vermont, which awarded her 17 delegates — the fewest number of delegates assigned by a state holding elections on Super Tuesday.

What will Nikki do now?

As the results rolled in, the biggest outstanding question of the night was how or if Haley would respond to the punishing defeats.

Haley’s campaign gave no suggestion whether she would make a statement Tuesday night or perhaps Wednesday morning.

With Super Tuesday done, Haley will need to decide whether to stay in the race against Trump even as any chance of derailing his march to the nomination seems to have slipped away.

Haley has no campaign events scheduled, a big change from previous primary nights when she had laid out plans to compete in future contests.

The former UN ambassador has recently ramped up attacks on Trump as unelectable and has said she’s not sure if she will endorse Trump if he is the GOP nominee.

The Biden-Trump rematch starts now

A surprising number of voters in both parties have stubbornly clung to the belief that someone other than Trump or Biden will be the nominees.

After Super Tuesday, they can forget about it.

Trump is on track to come close to a majority of Republican delegates after sweeping to big wins. Ditto for Biden.

So the president and the former president are all but assured of being nominated by their parties’ conventions in the summer, regardless of the political parlor games suggesting they could somehow be replaced.

Biden cruises to easy wins

President Biden rolled to easy wins in all the Super Tuesday primaries that were declared.

The Democratic incumbent was running up the score from coast to coast against nominal opposition from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minnesota) and Marianne Williamson.

Biden was expected to face some protest write-in votes in Minnesota over his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza, but not on the same scale as the 13% who voted for uncommitted delegates in Michigan last week.

The president was watching the results from the White House where aides said he was working on Thursday’s State of the Union address, which will double as a kickoff for his general election campaign against Trump.

As of 11:13 p.m., Trump had won 12 states on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. Biden had picked up 14 Super Tuesday victories. There were more than 2,000 delegates up for grabs across the two parties.

Trump has steamrolled through the GOP primary, and is seeking to push his lone remaining rival, Nikki Haley, out the race. She had not spoken publicly about Tuesday’s results and did not have a public election night party.

She did score one surprise victory Tuesday, knocking off Trump in Vermont, according to The AP.

A win by Haley in any state would mark a major upset, but the Vermont victory did not change the trajectory of the race. Haley was seeking to score enough delegates to forestall Trump’s national primary victory, which could come as soon as next week. The longer Haley remains in the race, the more resources the Trump campaign must expend on the primary. It is unclear if Haley would endorse Trump if she drops out in the coming days.

Despite the Vermont drama, the broader Super Tuesday results confirmed the expectation going into the day: Biden and Trump are on the cusp of a rerun of the 2020 election.

In the Democratic primary, Biden has had to fend off protest votes from some Americans upset with his handling of Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza.

Biden said the Super Tuesday results crystallized the choice America faces.

“Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” Biden said in a statement late Tuesday, asserting that Trump is “driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people.”

11:13 pm: Biden and Trump win California 

The delegate-rich Golden State went the way of most of the rest of the map on Tuesday, with Biden and Trump both emerging victors, according to The AP.

11 pm: Biden loses American Samoa

Jason Palmer, a Baltimore resident who campaigned by Zoom call, beat Biden in the tiny Pacific territory of American Samoa, hauling in a reported 51 caucus votes, according to The AP.

10:45 pm: Nikki Haley beats Trump in Vermont

Nikki Haley salvaged a win over Trump in Vermont, The AP projected.

Haley edged out Trump by a narrow margin by rolling up a 3-1 win in Burlington, the biggest city in the deep-blue state.

It’s Haley’s second victory of the nomination quest after a win in the Washington, D.C., primary.

10:30 pm: Trump trashes Biden in Super Tuesday victory speech

Trump celebrated his win by trashing President Biden as he looked ahead to a near-certain general election rematch against the man who beat him in 2020.

“He’s the worst president in the history of our country,” Trump said. “It’s sad to see what’s happening.”

The former president slammed Biden in a rambling speech for mishandling the economy and the situation at the southern border.

“Our country is very divided,” Trump said. “In some ways we’re a Third World country.”

“This is the worst invasion. No country has ever seen anything like it,” he added.

Trump promised a crowd of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate that he would win back the White House.

“We’re going to take back our country,” Trump vowed.

9:24: Biden and Trump win Minnesota

The Associated Press said Biden and Trump took home victories in Minnesota. Trump has now won 10 states so far this evening.

9:09 pm: Biden and Trump pick up delegates in Colorado

In Colorado, Biden and Trump both won, according to the Associated Press. The state’s top court had knocked Trump off the ballot, but was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s the westernmost state called so far.

9 pm: Vermont’s GOP race too close to call

In the only competitive state so far, the Republican race in Vermont was too close to call. Trump had a 2-point lead with about half the vote in, but most of the vote had not been reported in Burlington, Vermont’s largest city and the home of the flagship state university. Haley could score a large haul of votes from the city.

9 pm: Biden and Trump win Texas

Biden and Trump both notched victories in delegate-rich Texas, according to the Associated Press. The AP called the victories as soon as polls closed in West Texas. Shortly after, The AP also called Arkansas for Trump.

8:49 pm: Trump wins Massachusetts

The 45th president hit New England turbulence in Vermont, but Massachusetts — which has some Republican strongholds outside the Boston area — went for Trump, according to the Associated Press. The AP called the race with little of the vote counted, suggesting Haley was not competitive in the Bay State.

8:45 pm: Biden and Trump win Alabama; Biden wins Arkansas

The president and his predecessor scored wins in Alabama, according to the Associated Press. Biden also scored a quick AP victory call in Arkansas.

8:27 pm: Biden wins Massachusetts, Maine; Trump wins Maine

The Associated Press has called Massachusetts for both Trump and Biden. Trump also won Maine, The AP said.

8:16 pm: Trump and Biden win Oklahoma.

Both Trump and Biden picked up victories in the Sooner State, according to the Associated Press. Early results showed both candidates romping.

8:05 pm: Trump and Biden roll in Tennessee

Trump wins the Tennessee primary as expected with the Associated Press projecting him as the winner just after polls close.

Biden also won.

7:45 pm: Trump projected to win North Carolina

Trump is projected as the winner of the North Carolina Republican primary, according to the Associated Press.

Biden won the Democratic contest.

7:25 pm: Biden and Trump projected to win Virginia

Trump is projected by the Associated Press as the winner the Republican primary in Virginia. President Biden, meantime, has also won Virginia.

Trump was running up wide margins over Haley in Virginia, which was considered one of the former South Carolina governor’s best chances for an upset.

7:05 pm: No immediate calls for Trump in Virginia, Vermont

There was no immediate call of the Republican primaries in Virginia and Vermont by major networks as polls closed at 7 pm. The two states were considered among the best possibilities for Haley to pull off upsets of former Trump.

NBC News noted that Trump was leading in Virginia.

An immediate call for Trump in either state would have signaled a looming landslide over Haley in the remaining 13 primary states with results rolling in later Tuesday night.

6:50 pm: Haley has no public schedule

Haley’s schedule on Super Tuesday is a blank slate, raising questions about her future plans in the Republican presidential primary.

The former South Carolina governor has no events on her public schedule and did not respond to inquiries about whether she plans to speak after results are announced.

Haley has said she plans to stay in her long-shot race against Trump for as long as she can be “competitive.”

That sounds a lot less definitive than what Haley said about Super Tuesday in recent weeks, which was that she was 100% going to stay in the race until the biggest raft of primary states went to the polls.

5:50 pm: Biden wins Iowa’s Democratic race: The AP has called Iowa for Biden in the first primary result of the night. The election was held by mail beginning last month; Biden scored more than 90% of the vote, according to incomplete results.

Tuesday morning: Taylor Swift told her Instagram followers to vote in Super Tuesday states, but did not say who they should support. She endorsed Biden in 2020.

The justices voted 9-0 that Colorado did not have the right to act on its own to bar him for violating the 14th Amendment’s so-called insurrection clause.

But they split along ideological lines about the legal meaning of the ruling and what should happen if Trump would be found to have led an insurrection by inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Here are five takeaways:

Trump will be on the ballot in 2024 everywhere

All nine Supreme Court justices agreed that individual states like Colorado do not have the right to bar Trump from the Republican presidential primary or general election ballots, assuming he is the GOP nominee.

A five-judge majority of the court also further ruled that only Congress could pass legislation barring an accused insurrectionist from becoming president.

But such legislation is unlikely to be passed anytime soon given the divided Congress, where the House is led by Republicans and Democrats lead the Senate.

States cannot use 14th Amendment to bar candidates for federal offices

All the justices agreed that individual states should not be permitted to decide whether a presidential candidate is ineligible for office.

The unanimous decision said allowing states to do so would create a “chaotic patchwork” of rules for electing the person to serve America’s highest office.

The justices did not address the fact that such a patchwork already exists when it comes to ballot access for third-party and independent candidates, not to mention voting rules like those covering voting by mail and barring felons from voting.

Four dispute idea that only Congress can enforce insurrection clause

The court’s three liberal justices disputed the majority’s contention that the only way for a candidate accused of being an insurrectionist to be barred from the ballot would be for Congress to pass legislation.

The trio’s concurring opinion suggested that the Supreme Court could bar a presidential candidate under the 14th Amendment if that person had been categorically found to have participated in an insurrection, perhaps by his or her own admission.

The liberals also slammed the court for going beyond what was required to decide the matter at hand, a key judicial principal that the top court’s conservative majority has regularly invoked in recent decisions. Those include its controversial decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed with the legal point made by the three liberals, but declined to join their opinion. She criticized the “stridency” of their views.

Ruling sidesteps whether Trump led insurrection on Jan. 6

Everyone knows the ruling is about Trump.

But neither the unanimous ruling of the court nor the concurring opinions actually mention the former president by name.

That could be because the Supreme Court is generally not called upon to determine the facts of a particular case.

And in the Colorado case, the state Supreme Court found that Trump’s actions amounted to inciting an insurrection.

So there was no need for any of the justices to opine on whether they agreed with that assessment or not.

Few clues for Trump presidential immunity case

Some legal analysts believe the Supreme Court might be planning a so-called “grand bargain” on Trump: allowing him access to the ballot but refusing to block his criminal trials.

The ruling gave few signs of such a deal, which would involve rejecting his plea for blanket presidential immunity against prosecution, a very different legal issue.

A possible bread crumb about the immunity decision could be gleaned from the timing of the ballot decision, which was issued a month after oral arguments.

If the justices act at a similar pace in the immunity case, they could issue a decision by Memorial Day after hearing arguments in late April.

That timing would permit a trial to start by Labor Day in Trump’s federal election interference case if the court rejects Trump’s appeal.

With 15 states prepared to vote, Trump leads Haley in all of them, although the former UN ambassador is within striking distance in a few, such as Massachusetts, Minnesota, Virginia and Vermont, that are strongholds of more moderate suburban Republicans.

Haley boasted some momentum from a lopsided win in Sunday’s Washington, D.C., GOP primary, her first win after Trump swept all the traditional early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and her home state of South Carolina.

Haley beat Trump by a nearly 2-1 margin in the D.C. contest, where Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats by a 10-1 margin and most GOP voters are moderate, affluent and well educated, demographics that have favored her.

But Trump remains the overwhelming favorite to romp to a lopsided victory in populous, delegate-rich states such as California and Texas, which will likely all but seal his win in the Republican nomination fight.

He could win a majority of the GOP delegates, effectively wrapping up the nomination, as early as next week, before he faces any of four expected criminal trials on a total of 91 felonies.

On the Democratic side, President Biden is facing only nominal opposition and is expected to cruise to overwhelming victories in all the states on tap.

Biden could face some pockets of resistance from progressive opponents of his stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, some of whom may vote for uncommitted delegate slates after about 13% did so in last week’s Michigan primary.

The vast coast-to-coast map on Super Tuesday seems tailor-made for Trump to keep rolling on his way to an insurmountable lead over Haley.

Haley rallied supporters on Monday in Texas, the second-biggest delegate prize next to California.

The ex-president, who remains the most popular and powerful leader in the GOP, has been ramping up pressure on Haley to drop out, and another big win could be the final straw for her.

Haley still boasts a significant campaign war chest and has said she wants to stay in the race until the Republican National Convention in July in case delegates there have second thoughts about formally nominating Trump amid his legal woes.

But Haley had been most adamant about staying in the race through Super Tuesday, raising the possibility she might not soldier on if she endures another round of punishing defeats.

One big question for Trump will be if he continues to perform relatively poorly with affluent college-educated Republican primary voters, a onetime reliable GOP voting bloc that has swung hard to Democrats since he burst onto the political scene.

Nikki Haley wins Washington, D.C., GOP primary — first victory over Donald Trump

Key tests of his weakness with those voters could come in Virginia, a state that Sen. Marco Rubio nearly won in the 2016 race when he ran against Trump as  a moderate, and Minnesota, which Rubio won. Massachusetts and Vermont, where Republicans elected moderate GOP Gov. Phil Scott, might also give Haley stronger than expected showings.

The decision, which came one day ahead of a slate of Super Tuesday primary elections from coast to coast, further cements Trump’s path to the Republican presidential nomination.

In an unsigned, 13-page majority opinion, the high court said that Congress, rather than the states, carries the responsibility of enforcing a constitutional provision that bars insurrectionists from returning to office. Four justices signed opinions concurring in the judgment but questioning whether enforcement of the provision should be confined to Congress.

On the fundamental question of whether Trump would be removed from Colorado’s ballot, the court ruled 9 to 0.

Shortly after the release of the decision, Trump wrote on social media: “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!”

The ballot case had placed the conservative Supreme Court in an unprecedented and uncomfortable position: Forced to rule on an argument — viewed by some leading legal scholars as strong — that concludes Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack disqualifies him from serving as president and renders him ineligible for the ballot.

Colorado’s top court was convinced by the argument, finding in a 4-to-3 December decision that Trump’s connection to the Jan. 6 mayhem amounted to engagement in insurrection that prevents him from holding or running for the office of president again.

The Colorado ruling was built on Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, a provision enacted after the Civil War that bars officeholders who have taken an oath of office to uphold the Constitution from returning to office if they have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion.”

After the Colorado court ejected Trump from the state’s ballot, the move was repeated by Maine’s secretary of state for the ballot in the northern New England state, and by a circuit court judge in Illinois for the ballot in the deep-blue Land of Lincoln.

Judges and election officials in other states, including some Democratic strongholds such as New York, went the other way, leaving Trump on their ballots. To some, the idea of removing him from the ballot has seemed bizarre and antidemocratic, whatever the legal arguments.

The Supreme Court said in its unsigned majority opinion, “States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office.”

“But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” said the opinion, adding: “The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand.”

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-to-3 conservative supermajority after key Trump appointments, has been viewed by the public as increasingly partisan as it has issued polarizing decisions ending the right to abortion and banning affirmative action in college admissions.

But in the ballot case, the court took pains to downplay its partisan divides. “All nine Members of the Court agree,” the majority opinion emphasized, referring to the outcome. “Our colleagues writing separately further agree with many of the reasons this opinion provides for reaching it.”

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett filed a solo concurring opinion saying that she agreed that states lack the power to enforce Section 3 against a candidate for the presidency, but that she would not go so far as to say that Section 3 can only be applied through federal legislation.

“This suit was brought by Colorado voters under state law in state court,” she wrote. “It does not require us to address the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced.”

Barrett’s position would not strip the federal courts of the power to enforce Section 3.

Still, she downplayed her disagreement with the majority, urging Americans to take from the decision the message that “our differences are far less important than our unanimity.”

The court’s three liberals — Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor — signed on to a separate opinion concurring with the judgment but echoing Barrett’s point in more strident language.

They wrote that the majority had decided “novel constitutional questions to insulate” themselves and Trump from “future controversy.”

“We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment,” the liberals wrote.

The court moved swiftly to produce the opinions in the case, Trump v. Anderson.

On Jan. 5, the court agreed to hear an appeal of the decision handed down in Colorado. In doing so, the court took on perhaps its most explosive election case since Bush v. Gore, the 5-to-4 ruling that effectively handed the White House to George W. Bush by halting a Florida recount in the 2000 election.

A ruling by the Supreme Court pushing Trump from the ballot could have set off an incendiary reaction from his fervent supporters, a reality that may have weighed on the court, which has three appointees of the former president but has sometimes ruled against him.

The case was sapped of much of its drama at oral arguments when members of the court’s liberal bloc voiced skepticism at the case for removing Trump from the ballot. Their remarks left little question about the direction of the case.

Addressing a lawyer for Colorado voters opposed to Trump’s eligibility, the liberal Kagan said: “I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States.”

“Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination not only for their own citizens, but for the rest of the nation?” she wondered aloud on Feb. 8.

New Yorkers are due to vote in the Republican presidential primary on April 2. Trump has been dominating this GOP election cycle, marching toward an expected general election rematch with President Biden, who trails Trump in the polls.

She got 63% of the vote to win all of 19 delegates from Washington, D.C., Politico reported, citing local party officials. Trump scooped up the other third.

The former South Carolina governor lost every GOP contest before that, most recently on Saturday in Idaho and Michigan. She also lost the primary in her home state of South Carolina last week.

Super Tuesday will see primaries or caucuses held in 15 states and one territory, contests that Trump is mostly expected to win.

The 45th president lost the D.C. Republican primary in 2016 but won when he ran unopposed in 2020.

Just 5% of registered voters in the nation’s capital are Republican, about 23,000 people. And most of them know all the players.

That fact was not lost on Trump, who posted a sarcastic statement dubbing his rival “Queen of the swamp,” anointed by “the lobbyists and D.C. insiders that want to protect the failed status quo.”

Haley’s camp noted that she was the first woman in U.S. history to win a Republican primary.

“It’s not surprising that Republicans closest to Washington dysfunction are rejecting Donald Trump and all his chaos,” Haley spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement obtained by The Washington Post.

She is the last Trump challenger standing after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out early on.

After a dominating run so far this election cycle, Trump is considered to have a lock on the Republican presidential nomination.

In recent weeks, Haley has argued he’ll lose to President Biden in the November general election, though.

She rallied in D.C. on Friday before traveling to North Carolina and several of the states that are holding Super Tuesday contests.

“We’re trying to make sure that we touch every hand that we can and speak to every person,” Haley said.

With News Wire Services

The survey conducted by Tulchin Research in mid-February found 70% of voters who were polled support an increase to the maximum amount of unemployment benefits currently allowed by the state. Support for such an increase is fairly consistent across political party lines as well, with 80% of Democratic voters, 57% of Republicans and 63% of independents saying they back it.

Rich Maroko, president of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, told the Daily News that he hopes the new data will bolster his push for Gov. Hochul to raise the maximum unemployment payout in New York, which currently lags behind nearby states like New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Respectively, people in those states can receive up to $854, $796 and $1,033 per week in unemployment benefits.

As it now stands, the highest unemployment payment New Yorkers can receive is $504 per week, which is equivalent to $12.60 an hour — $3.40 less than the $16 minimum wage.

Maroko, who recently penned an op-ed in The News about the issue, wants Hochul to include his union’s proposal to raise the unemployment cap into her budget, as well as eliminate a provision that prevents striking union workers from collecting benefits within the same timeframe as other people seeking unemployment payments.

When union workers are on strike, they must now wait two additional weeks before they’re eligible to receive benefits. According to the Tulchin poll, 54% of New Yorkers surveyed about that discrepancy described it as “not fair,” and 60% said striking workers should have the same wait time — a week — as other people who receive benefits.

“If average rent in the city of New York is $3,000 plus per month, $504 doesn’t even cover rent, much less pay all of the other bills — utilities and internet and food and the rest,” Moroko said. “We’re way behind our neighbors, and the cap has not increased in five years.”

The reason for that five-year lag is rooted in insolvency in the state’s unemployment fund brought on largely by increased claims from so many people who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Under normal circumstances the cap on unemployment benefits automatically increases on an annual basis, Maroko noted, but that doesn’t occur when the state’s unemployment trust fund is running at a deficit. Currently, that deficit stands at approximately $7.5 billion.

“No one foresaw the trust fund being insolvent for as long as it is, and so no one thought that we’d be stuck at $504 for this long … certainly not in an environment where inflation has been as high as it has been,” Maroko said, adding the delay in benefits to striking union workers is another issue.

The union honcho said he’s been in talks with Hochul and her staff for about two months about raising the cap on benefits and eliminating the two-week wait for striking union workers. Hochul’s team didn’t reveal much about where she stands on those changes when contacted by the Daily News, but a spokesman appeared to leave the door open to Maroko’s asks.

“Governor Hochul is always fighting for working people, which is why she fought to pass legislation to raise the minimum wage and crack down on wage theft,” said Avi Small, a spokesman for the governor. “New York’s unemployment rate has plummeted since Governor Hochul took office, and we’ll continue working with stakeholders to support New Yorkers who fall on hard times.”