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

As we discussed earlier, using presidential primary results to read the tea leaves of the general election seems to be a particularly fraught exercise. The dynamics (and electorates) of the two types of contests are wildly different, and several of my colleagues pointed out a variety of ways in which this type of analysis could go awry.

But now that Biden and Trump are both within weeks of officially securing their party nomination, I wonder if we'll start to see the conversation around the election turn. As Elliott noted earlier, Trump's speech tonight sounded more like a pivot to the general: Rather than mentioning Haley, he focused on Biden. And with the State of the Union on Thursday, Biden will also have an opportunity to try to focus the nation on his priorities for a potential second term. So it seems like both Trump and Biden have an opportunity to try to start communicating with the nation on their respective visions for the country.

The wildcard, for me, is whether voters are ready to pay attention. If they're not, then the messaging coming from the two candidates might start to turn into a low hum of background noise, essentially taking the edge off of any possible messaging wins as the campaigns beat the same drums for 8 straight months. If voters are ready to tune in, though, we may start to see polls shift in one direction or the other as campaigning begins in earnest.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

Okay, maybe I'm biased because it was my assignment to report out some of the downballot races tonight, but when the presidential primaries are basically all over but the cryin', they make for much more interesting politics. But once Biden and Trump make it official, don't let the intensity of the presidential race overshadow these races further down the ballot. There's a lot at stake — majority powers in two narrowly divided chambers! — and these races can sometimes tell us more about what voters think is important than the marquee race at the top of the ticket. Of course, you can always depend on 538 to keep you up to speed!

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538

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

We're not ending the live blog just yet since there are more results to come ... But we're going to get some shuteye and be back here tomorrow, bringing you updates from some of today's later-closing races.

So, it's "final" thoughts time — what did everyone take away from tonight's results?

—Tia Yang, 538