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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Haley's coalition remains strong in Vermont

While the overall result has differed, the Vermont map below showcases a similar trend to Massachusetts. As Nathaniel pointed out, Boston and its well-to-do suburbs leaned towards Haley. In Vermont, Haley's strongest results came in areas just across the New Hampshire border from Dartmouth College and in the stretch of land between Montpelier and Burlington, which benefit economically from those population centers and a few prominent ski resorts.

Amina Brown, 538


VIEWPAC-endorsed candidates in open primaries are having a tough night

In 2022, our analysis showed that just 48 percent of Republican women in open primaries endorsed by VIEWPAC (a PAC dedicated to electing more women) won. As we observed at the time, VIEWPAC was willing to endorse candidates running against Trump endorsees, which was a bold, but losing, strategy in 2022. Tonight, VIEWPAC candidates in open primaries are not having a lot of success. As I already mentioned, in Alabama's 2nd District, Caroleene Dobson trails Dick Brewbaker. And in Texas's 26th District, another endorsee, Luisa del Rosa, a small business owner, is in a distant fourth place behind a Trump endorsee, Brandon Gill, with 88 percent of the expected votes in. (Gill has also been endorsed by Club for Growth.) But in Texas's 34th, the race has been called for their endorsee, Maya Flores ... who is also endorsed by Trump.

Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor


Vermont on the razor's edge

Nikki Haley's delegate count from Vermont hinges on whether she clears the 50 percent threshold. And right now, she's incredibly close to it. With 68,420 votes cast, Haley has 34,215, which is 4 more votes than the 50 percent plus 1 she needs to sweep the state's delegates. When I simulate 100,000 primaries with that number of total votes and an even 50-50 split, I get a result that's within that tight margin only 3 percent of the time.

—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor


Trump projected to win California

Polls have closed in California, and ABC News projects that Trump will win the Golden State. He should easily clear 50 percent and claim all of the state's 169 delegates.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Final thought: Is it time to finally pivot to the general?

As we discussed earlier, using presidential primary results to read the tea leaves of the general election seems to be a particularly fraught exercise. The dynamics (and electorates) of the two types of contests are wildly different, and several of my colleagues pointed out a variety of ways in which this type of analysis could go awry.

But now that Biden and Trump are both within weeks of officially securing their party nomination, I wonder if we'll start to see the conversation around the election turn. As Elliott noted earlier, Trump's speech tonight sounded more like a pivot to the general: Rather than mentioning Haley, he focused on Biden. And with the State of the Union on Thursday, Biden will also have an opportunity to try to focus the nation on his priorities for a potential second term. So it seems like both Trump and Biden have an opportunity to try to start communicating with the nation on their respective visions for the country.

The wildcard, for me, is whether voters are ready to pay attention. If they're not, then the messaging coming from the two candidates might start to turn into a low hum of background noise, essentially taking the edge off of any possible messaging wins as the campaigns beat the same drums for 8 straight months. If voters are ready to tune in, though, we may start to see polls shift in one direction or the other as campaigning begins in earnest.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538