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.
Latest headlines:
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: What will Haley do?
On the presidential side, tonight basically went as expected: Trump will win at least 12 out of 15 contests, while Haley has chalked up only one win so far — a narrow win in Vermont, which was demographically well suited for her as it is home to a lot of independent voters, a lot of college graduates and few evangelicals. Trump also now leads the delegate race 908 to 62, as of midnight.
The question is, what will Haley do now? She has said all along that she wanted to give the voters on Super Tuesday a chance to weigh in on the race, and they did so, roundly rejecting her. She's now so far behind in the delegate race that she can't credibly say she still has a path to the nomination. She has no more public events scheduled, so it seems quite possible that she will drop out of the race, but we haven't heard from her so far tonight. Might she sleep on it and announce her withdrawal from the race later on Wednesday? That's really the only suspense left in this presidential primary.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538