While we like to think of Vermont as the home of Ben & Jerry’s and Bernie Sanders, from a historical perspective, it’s actually among the most Republican states in American history. It voted for every Republican candidate for president from 1856 to 1988 (except for Lyndon Johnson’s landslide in 1964), and former Sen. Pat Leahy was fond of noting that he was the only Democrat the state had ever sent to the Senate. So there’s something poetic about the state asserting itself in a GOP primary tonight.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections

Polling of the Vermont Republican primary was pretty thin this year, with only one poll released in the last month from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. That survey suggested a fairly easy win for Trump; he was ahead of Haley by 30 percentage points. In addition, 58 percent of likely GOP primary voters in the state said they would be dissatisfied or angry if Haley were to win the nomination, while just 29 percent said the same of Trump.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

Remember, dear reader, the presidential primary is all about the delegates. So far Trump has 276 to Haley's 43. That total is so lopsided that the only real question left is when, not if, Trump will win. The next big primary day is March 12 — let's take a look at what Trump needs to do today in order to clinch the delegate majority of 1,215 on the 12th.

Here's the math: There are 199 delegates up for grabs in contests between March 8 and March 12. Assuming he wins all of those 199 delegates, he would need to win 1,215 - 199 = 1,016 by the time all Super Tuesday ballots are counted. As noted, he's already won 276 of those delegates, meaning he has to pick up 769 delegates more, out of the 865 delegates up for grabs tonight. That's about 89% — which is a little higher than the 87% of delegates he has won from states that have voted so far.

Trump could totally pull that off, in which case we would start calling him the "presumptive nominee" next Tuesday. Otherwise, he will have to wait until March 19, when there are 370 more delegates up for grabs.

—G. Elliott Morris, 538

If you feel like sitting on the edge of your seat, like we do, The New York Times Needle is back in action tonight and has Haley ever-so-slightly ahead in Vermont at the moment.

—Monica Potts, 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