With the exception of a remarkable outcome in American Samoa, this was a night without very many surprises. Trump and Biden continue to dominate their respective parties, even as doubts linger — about age, about policy and about electability, to name a few concerns. But Trump's main opponent, Haley, has just won her second primary of the season — Vermont. Biden has opposition on the left, but no challenger; from the center of his party, he has a challenger, but no clear opposition.
One lesson from all of this is that even for candidates with as many liabilities as these have, it is incredibly difficult to compete with the name recognition and influence of a sitting or former president. In theory, parties could opt to nominate someone other than the sitting president — in practice, they have not really done so since the mid-19th century. Parties have come to be defined by their presidents. We especially see this with Trump, but this primary season and Super Tuesday have highlighted just how much it's true of Biden, too.
And yet it shows the cracks in the presidential dominance of their parties as well. Even as Trump has largely taken over the GOP, there remains a consistent, if small, segment that would like to see the party move in a different direction. And even as Biden continues to (almost) sweep the primaries, activists are organizing to use the primaries to protest some of his policies. Still, it's telling that ultimately these intraparty disagreements aren't framed as fights between factions, but rather in terms of support or opposition to the presidential figure at the head of the party.
—Julia Azari, 538 contributor
