Raleigh: Donald Trump and Joe Biden are all but guaranteed to win their party’s presidential nominations after dominating the Super Tuesday election contests, setting up a historic rematch most Americans say they don’t want.

After the biggest day of the 2024 primary season, Nikki Haley, Trump’s only remaining rival for the Republican ticket, is under pressure to drop out, having failed to win enough states or delegates to slow the former president’s march to the White House.

Fifteen states and one territory voted on Super Tuesday, a critical day in the election cycle when more than a third of state delegates – whose votes are needed for a candidate to win the nomination – were up for grabs.

In the Democratic contest, where Biden does not have a serious challenger, the president won every state where he was on the ballot. The only blow he suffered was in the territory of American Samoa, where a little-known businessman, Jason Palmer, beat him.

In the Republican races, Trump delivered an early blow to Haley by winning Virginia, a state her campaign had hoped she could pick up following her victory in neighbouring District of Columbia earlier in the week. He soon picked up almost every other, bar Vermont.

Trump’s campaign believes that by mid-March, he will have won enough primaries to clinch the 1215 delegates he needs to be declared the GOP’s presidential nominee.

In a speech before the last races were called, he immediately pivoted to the general election on November 5, citing immigration and inflation as two key issues, and declaring that the election would be “the single most important day in the history of our country”.

Biden, meanwhile, put out a statement accusing the four times indicted Republican of being driven by “grievance and grift”, “focused on his own revenge and retribution” and “determined to destroy our democracy.”