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

538 tracked how Trump and Haley did, plus key U.S. House and Senate races.

March 5 was Super Tuesday — the biggest election day of the year until the one in November! With former President Donald Trump projected to win 14 of the day's 15 GOP presidential nominating contests, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announced Wednesday morning that she is suspending her campaign.

It was also the first downballot primary day of 2024, with important contests for Senate, House and governor in states like Alabama, California, North Carolina and Texas.

538 reporters, analysts and contributors broke down the election results as they came in with live updates, analysis and commentary. Read our full live blog below.


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Final thought: The action is downballot

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


Final thought: The real winner is presidency-centered parties

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


Winding down for the evening!

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


An upset win for the Freedom Caucus

Interesting, Geoffrey. I was expecting Carl to win that one, as he had the geographic advantage: Carl and Moore were thrown together into this new district in redistricting, and Carl represented 59 percent of residents in the new district. But perhaps Moore’s conservative bona fides carried the day: He is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, so this primary was a victory for the insurgent wing of the Republican Party.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


But since we're talking about the general ...

Folks who are reading a 538 live blog have probably seen the general election polling showing Trump leading nationally by 2-3 percentage points and leading in the battleground state by more like 3-5 points. That is the answer you are looking for if you want to understand the current state of the races. Emphasis on current, meaning 8 months before the actual election when polls are historically not predictive. Now, there may be caveats about polls shifting less than usual over the coming months because Trump and Biden are already so well defined. But that's a theory, not a fact.

One dynamic in the primary that I do think is worth thinking about in understanding whether those numbers will shift or how, is where the challenge is coming from in both parties. Trump is being challenged by someone who is ideologically closer to Biden than to his Right flank. Biden's most enthusiastic opposition is coming from his left flank, aka not ideologically anywhere close to Trump. Folks always have the option of staying home or voting third party, but if I was Trump's campaign I would not like that dynamic ... particularly given that Biden's victory in 2020 came from an overperformance among independent/moderate voters.

Look at me, doing the thing I just said we shouldn't do.

—Galen Druke, 538