I think that's right, Galen. In a CNN poll back in January, 35 percent of voters said they either don't follow the campaign at all or only pay as much attention to it as necessary. Another 38 percent said they don't seek out campaign news, but do follow the news that they encounter. Only 26 percent of voters said they are frequently seeking out news about the campaign. At this point in the race, voters are not really tuned in. It may be that whatever happens in the primary stays in the primary.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

Julia, I hear what you're saying, and as a member of "the media," I have an inkling as to why this is happening. The primary contests are not competitive and we have to talk about about ... something ... anything!

To echo what you're saying, just 22 percent of the registered voters in Michigan cast a ballot in the primary last week. In 2020, voter turnout exceeded 70 percent in the general. These are just wildly different electorates.

I often feel flummoxed by comparisons of the midterms to the general, and in the midterms turnout is closer to 50 percent. A general electorate is far less engaged in politics and is — according to polls — more driven by economic issues. And frankly, a big chunk of them find both Biden and Trump unappealing.

So, while I do think there are interesting things to say about the primary, they are not the kind of things that will tell you who will win in November.

—Galen Druke, 538

The Congressional Leadership Fund, which is aligned with the Republican House leadership, has spent several hundred thousand dollars to prevent Sandy Smith from winning that primary again. CLF also spent (unsuccessfully) against Smith in the 2022 primary after several damaging stories about her came out.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections

Not only did she drop more than $1 million of her own money into her campaign, she lives in a fancy, columned, waterfront manor in ritzy Edenton, with its own boat dock and putting green!

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538

Voters are choosing more than their parties' presidential nominees tonight. In five Super Tuesday states, they're also deciding on candidates for statewide and local offices. Several consequential judicial elections are being held tonight, for positions on state supreme courts in Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, and on the Criminal Court of Appeals in Texas.

In Arkansas, nonpartisan general elections are being held to fill two vacancies on the Supreme Court, creating a game of musical chairs among the sitting justices that could potentially accelerate the already-conservative court's rightward shift. Chief Justice Dan Kemp is stepping down, and three of the four candidates running to replace him are already sitting on the court, while another sitting justice is angling to move to a different open seat on the court. The shuffle could leave two vacancies that would allow conservative Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to name replacements to finish their terms.

Alabama's Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker, who recently made waves nationally with a ruling that frozen embryos used for IVF are children, is also retiring because of the state's mandatory retirement age. Two candidates are running for the Republican nomination to replace him: sitting Associate Justice Sarah Stewart (who had to give up her seat to run for the top slot) and former state Senator Bryan Taylor. While Stewart joined the 8-1 majority opinion in the IVF case and both candidates have defended the decision, Taylor has claimed that Stewart is the "most liberal" justice on the all-Republican court, and received a huge influx of outside spending from conservative anti-abortion group Fair Courts America. Whoever wins will likely face (and defeat) Democrat Greg Griffin>) in the general election.

In Texas, Supreme Court Justice John Devine is facing a primary challenger who has questioned his ethics, but a bigger political feud is playing out in other races. Allies of Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton are funding primary challengers to three Criminal Court of Appeals judges who ruled against him in a voter fraud decision, limiting his power to prosecute those cases. And as Nathaniel noted earlier, Paxton, who had been accused of abusing power to protect a political donor, has also endorsed primary challengers against 34 of the 60 Republican legislators who voted to impeach him last year.

—Monica Potts, 538