Super Tuesday primaries 2024: Trump and Biden dominate, Haley drops out

We're watching nine U.S. House primaries in California, five in seats that are broadly viewed as potentially competitive in November.

We'll start with the 22nd District in the Central Valley. Republican Rep. David Valadao faces a primary rematch with two of his 2022 opponents, former state Assemblymember Rudy Salas (a Democrat) and businessman Chris Mathys (a Republican). Valadao, who voted to impeach Trump after Jan. 6, only narrowly advanced to the general election ahead of Mathys before narrowly defeating Salas in November. Joining this year is Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado, who could split the Democratic vote enough to give Republicans a shot at claiming both general election spots.

5:59

Hotly contested race for Senate in California

Three Democrats and one Republican are running for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s set.

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Four other competitive seats are partly or wholly in Orange County. First, the open 47th District is a top GOP target. Republicans have mostly rallied behind Scott Baugh, who lost this seat by only 3 points in 2022. Baugh looks likely to face one of two Democrats, state Sen. Dave Min or attorney Joanna Weiss, who are in an ugly fight for second place. Min has endorsements from Porter and the state party, but his position was weakened when he was cited for driving under the influence last May. Weiss has a slight fundraising edge, raising $2.2 million to Min's $1.7 million, and she's also received far more outside support. Next door in the 45th District, Republican Rep. Michelle Steel will likely advance with one of two Democrats. Army veteran and attorney Derek Tran has led the way in fundraising with $647,000, and has earned endorsements from VoteVets and AAPI Victory Fund, while Garden Grove City Councilmember Kim Nguyen-Penaloza has raised $315,000, and has backing from the state party, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus's BOLD PAC and labor groups.

Nearby in the 40th District, Republican Rep. Young Kim is contending with two Democrats: retired Orange County Fire Capt. Joe Kerr and Tustin school board member Allyson Muñiz Damikolas. Kerr has raised $1.1 million to Damikolis's $550,000, but Kerr has self-funded much of his haul. Kerr has Gov. Gavin Newsom's endorsement as well as backing from various labor groups, while Damikolas has support from EMILY's List, BOLD PAC and 314 Action. To the south, four mostly self-funding Republicans are vying to take on Democratic Rep. Mike Levin in the 49th District. Advertising executive Margarita Wilkinson has loaned her campaign $1.5 million of the $1.8 million she's raised, while car dealership owner Matt Gunderson has self-funded $700,000 of his $1.2 million total. The same is true of the other two candidates, Marine veteran Kate Monroe and auto-industry executive Sheryl Adams, who've raised less than $400,000 each.

The remaining races are in safe seats, where it's possible — even likely — that two candidates from the same party will advance to November. Jacob will have more on those races shortly, and you can read about them in our full California (and Alabama) race preview from last week.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

For the past three election cycles, 538 has tracked key progressive groups' endorsees to get a sense of Democrats' intraparty dynamics following the 2016 presidential primary, which drew out sharp ideological factions and spurred an ambitious progressive movement working to make its mark on the party. For example, in 2018, now-Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley shocked the political world by unseating 20-year incumbents in Democratic primaries. In 2020, fellow progressives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush won their own upsets against long-serving members. But in 2022, fewer progressives were successful in unseating incumbents. One was Oregon's Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who defeated Rep. Kurt Schrader despite Biden's endorsement of the incumbent, but went on to lose in November.

Today's races may not answer whether progressives candidates this year will unseat incumbents — none of the races we're watching tonight pit incumbents against notable progressives. Has the progressive caucus's appetite to challenge incumbents cooled as they worked with the rest of their party to help Biden pass his legislative agenda? Or are they preoccupied preparing to play defense against expected challengers of their own?

At least one incumbent on a primary ballot today notably doesn't have a progressive challenger: In Texas's 28th District, progressives have passed on a third attempt to unseat Rep. Henry Cuellar, after backing attorney Jessica Cisneros in both 2020 and 2022. In those cycles, progressive groups attacked Cuellar's conservative positions on issues like abortion and gun control, but Cuellar narrowly defeated Cisneros each time. Although the state director of the Working Families Party has criticized Cuellar this cycle, no progressive challenger has emerged, and today he will coast to the nomination.

Of course, progressive candidates aren't just trying to replace incumbent Democrats who they think are out of step with the modern party. They're running in primaries for open and competitive races all over the country, like California's Senate contest and California's 40th District race, where Democrats hope to unseat Republican Rep. Young Kim in November. To get the full picture of the progressive wing's electoral strategy and success rates in 2024, we're once again tracking candidates who have received endorsements from any of the following key progressive groups: Justice Democrats, Indivisible, the Working Families Party, the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, the Sunrise Movement, and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Throughout the evening, we'll share tables like this one with updated results as we find out how progressives (and other candidate groupings in both parties — like women and Trump endorsees) fare in today's primaries.

—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor

If you’re wondering what races you should be watching when — or how much coffee you’ll need to drink tonight — we’ve got you covered! Here’s a rundown of when polls will be closing across the country.

The first polls will close in Vermont and Virginia at 7 p.m. Eastern, followed by North Carolina at 7:30 p.m. — our first state of the evening with downballot races. The busiest stretch for returns will probably be after 8 p.m., when polls close in six states, including Alabama and (almost all of) Texas, which are hosting a number of competitive primaries for Congress, state legislature and more.

And if you’re in it for the long haul, you’ll want to stick around to get a first look at returns in California, the state with the most delegates up for grabs — not to mention a slew of high-profile House races and the most expensive Senate race of the cycle. Polls close in the Golden State at 11 p.m. Eastern, but as usual, we’ll only get a sneak peek tonight: The state accepts mail-in ballots until March 12 as long as they’re postmarked by today, and projections in close races could take days or even weeks.

—Tia Yang, 538

In several of California's open congressional districts, tonight could be the end of any suspense about who the next representative will be. Or, it could be the start of an eight-month intraparty slog.

That's because California's unique all-party primary system — where the top two primary vote-getters advance to the general election — allows for either a traditional contest between a Democrat and a Republican or a fight between members of the same party in the general election, and it's not always obvious which one you're going to get. That's the case in at least four open-seat races today — three Democratic and one Republican.

In California's 16th District, there are nine Democrats but just two Republicans vying to replace Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo. While limited polling of the district suggests that former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo or Santa Clara Supervisor Joe Simitian, both Democrats, are the front-runners, if one of the two Republicans consolidates most of the GOP vote and the Democratic vote scatters among the many candidates, a Republican could finish in the top two. In the 2022 primary, the Republican candidates didn't meet that threshold, splitting a combined 22 percent of the vote; the four GOP candidates in the state's Senate race won a combined 24 percent in the district. A Republican advancing would ensure that whichever Democrat also finished ahead would win the general election in November, given the district's partisan bent. But if two Democrats finish in the top two, it'll be a real race.

Same goes in the 30th District, where Adam Schiff is leaving to run for Senate. Twelve Democrats and just two Republicans will appear on the ballot there. In the 2022 primary, four GOP House candidates totaled 21 percent, and Senate GOP candidates combined for a smaller 22 percent. Democratic state legislators Anthony Portantino and Laura Friedman, and Democratic former city attorney Mike Feuer are the front-runners for this seat; if two of those three make it to the general election, it will be an expensive and sharp-elbowed race to November, but if one of the Republicans squeezes in, it's basically over.

In the 31st District, where Democrat Grace Napolitano is retiring, six Democrats and two Republicans are running. In 2022, the one Republican running for the seat, Daniel Martinez, advanced to the general by winning 37 percent of the vote in the primary. Former Rep. Gil Cisneros, state Sens. Susan Rubio and Bob Archuleta, former Monrovia Mayor Mary Ann Lutz and attorney Greg Hafif are all running well-funded Democratic campaigns, creating the possibility that Martinez, who is running again, could finish in the top two instead of two Democrats, effectively ending this race tonight.

And in Kevin McCarthy's old seat, the 20th District, it's a similar story with the parties reversed. There, the two Democrats will probably combine for around 30 percent of the primary vote (in 2022, the House candidates combined for 30 percent and the Senate candidates for 32 percent), while six Republicans fight over the remaining 70 percent (a seventh dropped out but remains on the ballot).

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections

5:39

GOP status in California ahead of Super Tuesday

California GOP Chair Jessica Millan Patterson touts momentum in the state that's majority Democratic.

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