Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It's Super Tuesday, which means many states will be holding presidential primary elections and caucuses, giving us a clearer picture of who the official party nominees are going to be for this year's presidential race.
The incumbent, President Joe Biden, is facing no substantial primary challenge for the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side, Nikki Haley is struggling to make any headway against former President Donald Trump
As of late Monday afternoon, Haley is a couple hundred delegates behind Trump.
Congressman Nick Langworthy (R, NY-23) says by the end of Tuesday, the numbers should show Trump as the overwhelming victor.
"President Trump is the nominee of our party," said Langworthy in an interview with WBEN on Monday. "And I think [on Tuesday] it becomes, mathematically, a certainty. So hopefully [Nikki Haley] does the right thing and stops raising money from all the 'Never Trumpsters' and the people that are out there trying to hurt Trump's candidacy. We need to unite the party and work on defeating Joe Biden this fall."
"I expect the President to continue being strong and doing very well, in the primaries, and I think Donald Trump is kind of solidifying his base of the Republican Party to be solidly behind him," added Jeremy Zellner, Erie County Democratic Party Chair and Board of Elections Commissioner. "You know, it's clear the Republican Party is about Donald Trump. And you know, that's getting more and more clear after every primary election that he's in."
Primary election day in New York State this year is not until April 2, which means when it's all said and done, New York really doesn't play a pivotal role in this presidential primary race, however, as Zellner reminds us, it has in the past.
"For a long time, New York State didn't play a big factor in the primaries. And then eight years ago, in 2016, we played a huge role in that election. I was the chair at the time. We had Hillary Clinton and we raised a lot of money for her, the former President Clinton was here. We were working really hard. Our county party is involved in making sure that we're getting folks to go out into the swing states in the fall. It's not necessarily something that we're focused on, to keep people in New York State. But we're going to other states, swing states, Ohio, we're going to be helping the other congressional races that are competitive downstate as well. So we kind of lend a hand to those other areas for the most part of the presidential years."
Does primary season need an overhaul?
"I think we stay the course. When you fast forward four years, neither Biden nor Trump will be on the ballot and we'll be on to new faces. The primary process has served us very well over many decades," says Congressman Langworthy.