Two ageing prizefighters in the ring in a gladiatorial battle

WELCOME to the political Thunderdome. The 2024 US election will be a gladiatorial battle between two ageing prize fighters who are determined to keep taking swings at each other.

- Sarah Baxter

With Super Tuesday over and Joe Biden’s televised State of the Union address tomorrow, the contest is entering its fateful mano-a-mano stage. Trump has the manic energy and white-knuckle fury over losing the last election to come roaring back into the ring, while vanity, unquenched ambition and a misplaced saviour complex are propping up Joe Biden in the other corner well beyond his natural sell-by date.

For the moment it looks like advantage Trump. At Mar-a-Lago, he entered the ballroom with a fist pump last night, while Biden, presumably, was tucked up in bed. “They call it Super Tuesday for a reason. This is a big one,” Trump crowed. “They tell me, the pundits and otherwise, that there has never been one like this, never been anything so conclusive.”

Trump beat Nikki Haley, his only Republican challenger, in 15 primary states from California to Massachusetts. Tiny liberal Vermont, home of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, was the site of her only victory. He trounced Haley among men, women (to a lesser extent) and minority voters. A CNN exit poll in North Carolina and Virginia found more than six out of 10 Republican voters didn’t give a fig whether Trump was convicted of a crime or not. They still think he is fit to be elected. A similar number felt Biden was not legitimately elected.