A resurgent Donald Trump is coming fast at a fading Joe Biden after his sweeping Super Tuesday

Donald Trump speaks at an election-night party at Mar-a-Lago. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Donald Trump’s chances of winning a second term in the White House have soared after a thumping victory in the Super Tuesday primaries, a series of legal wins and the sinking popularity of an ageing Joe Biden.

Trump’s Super Tuesday ­triumph means Americans will get a presidential election seven in 10 of them do not want, a repeat of the 2020 contest between two flawed candidates: a frighteningly infirm president and an ­accused felon.

Trump’s sweeping victory in 14 of 15 states against Nikki Haley confirms his utter dominance of today’s Republican Party, which he has remade in his own populist image. Haley, who espoused more traditional Republican values, ­including an internationally ­engaged America, never posed a serious threat to the roughly two-thirds of Republican MAGA ­voters who wanted Trump to run again.

Eric Trump, his wife Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr. watch Donald Trump speak at an election-night watch party at Mar-a-Lago. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

The results show Trump enjoying clear majority Republican support across a huge variety of states, from deep-red Republican states in the south, such as Alabama, to deep-blue Democrat states in the north like Massachusetts. Only in tiny Vermont did Haley upset Trump.

The sweeping victory for Trump, which sees him on the cusp of reaching the threshold of delegates needed to secure his party’s nomination, comes at a time when other factors are aligning to boost his chances of defeating Biden in November.

The prospect of Trump’s presidential run being derailed by the 91 felony charges he faces in four cases are less than they once seemed because the likely trial dates have been pushed back in several of the cases, including the high-profile January 6 insurrection case and a Georgia trial.

It is now possible that Trump may only face trial in one of the four cases before the November election – the so-called “hush-money case” which is due to begin in New York later this month and which is widely considered the least serious of the four. The ­Supreme Court this week ­removed another election impediment for Trump when it ruled unanimously that US states cannot remove the former president from their ballots after Colorado, Maine and Illinois did so.

Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign rally in Fort Worth, Texas. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

The other good news for Trump is that Biden is on the nose with voters in an election year. Polls this week show Trump has passed Biden and now leads him by two to five percentage points, while Biden’s disapproval rating is now the highest of his presidency amid concerns about immigration, cost of living and his age.

But Trump’s big wins against Haley came with a potential sting in the tail.

Despite losing in every state, Haley still managed to win anywhere between roughly 13 and 50 per cent of the Republican vote. This shows that there is still a sizeable minority of Republican voters for whom Trump is not their preferred candidate.

Joe Biden speak at the White House. Picture: AFP.

A deeply divided Republican Party would spell doom for Trump’s campaign. The key question is whether Haley supporters will ultimately cast their votes for Trump in November on the basis that he is still more attractive to conservatives than Biden. Or are many of Haley’s supporters “Never Trumpers” who would rather vote for Biden, or not vote at all, than cast a ballot for Trump? The answer to this could determine the election.

But for now, Trump is riding high, having experienced the best month of his campaign so far with the knowledge that he still has the power to mesmerise his red-meat MAGA heartland. Although most Americans don’t want to see a rematch between the 81-year-old President and his 77-year-old challenger, there is every chance that this will be a tough and brutal nailbiter of a contest.