You’re right, Nathaniel, this isn’t a real primary. If nothing really dramatic happens, Trump is going to easily walk to the nomination. My silver lining: Super Tuesday marks the start of our downballot primary season, with primary races for Senate in California and Texas, and primaries for House races in five states. So perhaps we’ll have something more competitive to talk about soon.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

Well, this wasn’t the most eventful primary night I’ve ever live-blogged. But this gave me a chance to reflect on the increasingly unusual nature of Haley’s candidacy. I can see an emerging narrative about her speech, in which she positioned herself directly against the polarization represented by a Biden-Trump matchup. Haley is a former member of the Trump administration, yet she’s positioned herself more and more as a Trump alternative — not a Trump substitute. She’s focused mainly on the electability issue, but she did sound a bit like a center-right third party candidate there. That’s not all that struck me though — Haley has also run an explicitly gendered campaign, talking about her 5-inch heels and “if you want something done, ask a woman.” She is only the second woman to win delegates in Republican primaries or caucuses. (Carly Fiorina was the first.) As we track the (Trump-dominated) horse race, we shouldn’t lose sight of what a unique candidate she is.

—Julia Azari, 538 contributor

If Haley truly does drag this out through Super Tuesday, I’m curious what she expects to gain from losing in a couple dozen more states. I get that her motivations are bigger than becoming the nominee at this point, but will such a thorough thumping serve such goals? Only time will tell!

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538

Tonight, Trump became the first non-incumbent Republican in the modern primary era to win all three of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Haley has failed to win New Hampshire despite demographics that were practically engineered in a lab to be good for her, and she failed to win South Carolina despite it being her home state. Trump is going to be the nominee; it’s time to start treating the primary as over.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

I have become a little obsessed tonight about what we should be expecting Trump to hit in this primary a priori. That is, given Trump is assumed to be the eventual party nominee and almost universally liked in the GOP, should he be winning more than 60 percent in South Carolina?

I already gave my case for answering "no" to that question: Strictly speaking Trump is dominating the delegate count and running ahead of his 2016 vote share in most counties with complete counts this primary cycle. And if you consider that Haley gets a home-state advantage in South Carolina tonight, Trump's adjusted vote share is close to 65 or 70 percent; our delegate benchmarks think Trump should have won 68 percent of the vote based on the demographics of the state alone. That's not the highest number, but it's not the lowest right? Would 65 percent be "good" for Trump? 75 percent? 80?

One counterargument to this centers around how the media has covered historical performances by incumbent presidential candidates. Journalist Jill Lawrence points out that in 1992, Patrick Buchanan challenged incumbent President George H.W. Bush for the GOP nomination and won 40 percent in the New Hampshire primary, holding Bush to 58 percent of the vote. That's an almost identical split to the results from tonight. The New York Times journalist Robin Toner wrote up the results with the headline "BUSH JARRED IN FIRST PRIMARY" and said the result "amounted to a roar of anger" from Republican primary voters.

If Trump was a true incumbent, I imagine the news media would use a similar headline to describe tonight's results in South Carolina. Perhaps our expectations for him are too low, or we're too focused on the broader state of play? Haley said in her concession speech tonight that she will stay in the race indefinitely, so I guess we'll get more data on Super Tuesday — only 10 days from now. The primary lives on!

—G. Elliott Morris, 538