On March 5, the largest presidential primary of the year was held: the famed Super Tuesday. 16 states and one territory’s delegates were up for grabs, culminating in the largest amount of delegates gained in one day.
Colorado, Minnesota, Texas, California, Utah, Alaska, Virginia, Vermont, North Carolina, Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas and American Samoa each had delegates up for selection.
A majority of the results were expected. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump made the 2024 election rematch unofficially official, with both dominating the results. Trump went into Super Tuesday with a 200-delegate lead over Nikki Haley, Trump’s only rival.
Trump Expected to be Republican Presidential Nominee:
On the Republican side, Trump won all but one of the states by a large margin. Haley won Vermont, her only win of the night, but it was still an incredibly close race, as she only won 50.2% of the vote. Overall, Haley averaged 26% of the vote across the Super Tuesday states.
1,215 delegates are needed to win the Republican nomination, and Trump has 1,061 delegates, compared to Haley’s 91. In this sense, Trump had essentially shut Haley out of the election.
On March 6, Haley officially ended her 2024 presidential campaign, after a disappointing showing on Super Tuesday. She has not yet endorsed Trump for the nomination, as she previously said she no longer feels bound by her pledge to the Republican National Committee to support the party’s nominee.
Trump can secure the necessary 1,215 delegates as soon as March 12 or 19.
Trump’s Terrible News:
Unlike Biden, Trump did have some form of competition for the nomination: Haley. She performed strongly in cities, college towns and suburbs, which points toward the recent trend of college-educated voters not voting for Trump. A CNN exit poll found that 81% of the people who voted for Haley in North Carolina would not vote for Trump in this year’s presidential election. According to a Washington Post poll, around three out of 10 Republican voters said that if Trump is convicted of a crime, he would not be fit to be president. This comes in the face of Trump’s four indictments and looming hush money case trial.
Biden Set to Win Democratic Nomination:
Biden won every state but lost the U.S. territory of American Samoa, which has no electoral votes. While this was generally unexpected, less than 100 votes were cast, so it does not seem like a major update for Biden’s campaign. Jason Palmer, a little-known candidate who has never held political office, beat Biden with 56% of the vote. Throughout the Biden campaign, no major competition has arisen, so his place as the Democratic candidate remains.
In the rest of the primaries, Biden typically won around 80% of the vote. So far, Biden has 1,506 of the delegates needed out of the 1,968 required to win the 2024 Democratic nomination.
Biden’s Bad Omens:
Due to Biden’s handling of the growing conflict in the Middle East and refusal to call for a public ceasefire, his approval ratings have dropped. This reflected in the primaries, as in Michigan, over 100,000 Democrats voted “uncommitted.” In Minnesota, which has a large Muslim-American population, around 20% of Democrats voted “uncommitted.” While the numbers were not as high, this trend was also seen in North Carolina and Colorado.
