Can Trump clinch the Republican presidential nomination on Super Tuesday?

Donald Trump looks all but certain to secure the Republican presidential nomination for 2024 – unless challenger Nikki Haley can pull off the mother of all upsets on Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one US territory go to the polls.

While that looks highly unlikely going into the big day, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations did find a glimmer of hope on Sunday when she notched up her first win of the campaign in the Washington DC primary, scoring 62.9 per cent of the vote to Mr Trump’s 33.2 per cent.

Even so, when it comes to the delegate count, Ms Haley has a mountain to climb.

Of the 2,429 Republican Party delegates available throughout primary season, Mr Trump currently has 273 after winning the Iowa, US Virgin Islands and North Dakota caucuses and the New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, Michigan, Idaho and Missouri primaries.

Ms Haley lags behind with 43 while former candidates Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy picked up nine and three respectively in Iowa before they dropped out to endorse Mr Trump.

Another 865 delegates are up for grabs on Super Tuesday, representing about 36 per cent of the GOP total. So does this mean that Mr Trump can clinch the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday?

In short, no. Even if he secures a clean sweep that would only take him to 1,138 delegates, 77 shy of the 1,215 majority he needs to claim an all-out victory.

Winning American Samoa’s Republican caucus on Friday 8 March would hand him a further nine – still not enough – but he could finally seal the deal on Tuesday 12 March when Georgia, Mississippi and Washington hold their primaries and Hawaii its caucus.

Winning all of those would hand him another 161 delegates and take his total sailing past the magic