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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Republican primary voters want Haley to drop out

Given that Haley almost certainly wins Vermont (though whether she clears 50% and takes all the delegates is yet to be seen), she may be less likely to drop out of the race. But most Republican primary voters would rather see her move on: according to a February poll by Emerson College Polling, 56 percent of likely Republican primary voters nationwide say that Haley should drop out of the race for the Republican nomination. Thirty-one percent say she should stay in, and 13 percent are not sure.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Arkansas State Supreme Court results

In Arkansas, Justice Courtney Hudson won a race for position 2 on the state Supreme Court. She currently holds position 3, but ran for the vacant position 2 because of complicated judicial retirement rules. Her win will leave her current seat vacant, which will give Sanders the opportunity to appoint a replacement for the rest of the term. There is also a 4-way race for the chief justice spot, but if no candidate wins a majority tonight, the top two will head on to a runoff in November.

—Monica Potts, 538


Tight race in North Carolina’s 10th District

With nearly all expected votes counted in the Republican primary for North Carolina’s 10th District, it’s a tight race between moderate Pat Harrigan, who has 41 percent of the vote, and conservative Grey Mills, who has 39 percent. Whoever wins will be heavily favored to win the general election in this dark-red seat, which is open because Rep. Patrick McHenry is retiring.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Will the VIEWPAC-endorsed candidate win in Alabama's 2nd District?

In the Republican primary, attorney Caroleene Dobson is trailing businessman Dick Brewbaker in Alabama’s 2nd district, with 40 percent of the expected vote reporting. This race is an open primary due to redistricting, where eight Republicans are running for the nomination. Dobson had received an endorsement from VIEWPAC, an organization that formed in 1997 to elect more Republican women to office.

Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor


Downballot races include several judicial shuffles

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