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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Texas GOP primary voters thought today’s presidential race could be close

With 24 percent of the expected vote reporting, Trump is leading in Texas by 53 percentage points. Despite Trump's 65-point lead in the polls, likely GOP primary voters in Texas thought the race would be close in pre-election polling. In a February survey from the University of Texas at Tyler, just 17 percent of likely GOP primary voters in the state thought Trump would win by a large margin, while 21 percent thought that Trump would win in a close election. Another 6 percent said they thought Trump would win, but weren't sure of what the margin would be. Most of the rest, 46 percent, said they weren't sure who would win, and just 3 percent thought Haley would win.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Trump is projected to win Tennessee

ABC News projects that Trump will win the Tennessee Republican primary, his fourth win of the evening (and the night is young). Demographically, Tennessee was one of the best states for Trump, and it hasn't let him down tonight: He's currently leading 81 percent to 16 percent.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


What Trump's edge in Virginia looks like

Trump looks well on his way to a clear victory in Virginia. With 46 percent of the expected vote reporting, he leads Haley 66 percent to 32 percent.

If we look at a map of Virginia's counties and independent cities, we can see how Haley failed to break through. To be competitive, Haley needed to perform well in the state's three major metro areas: Northern Virginia outside of the nation's capital, around the state capital of Richmond and in Hampton Roads, the southeast corner of the state. Yet she's mostly striking out so far.

So far, she only leads in the inner D.C. suburbs (including the state's largest county, Fairfax) and in the city of Richmond proper. She will probably gain as Fairfax reports more, but critically, Trump leads in Loudoun and Prince William counties, the other two big population centers in Northern Virginia. Trump is also ahead around Richmond and leads everywhere in Hampton Roads. And his strength in the rural areas is very strong, much as was the case in the 2016 GOP primary here. Haley holds leads in the city of Roanoke and in the Albemarle County-Charlottesville City area, but it's far from enough to make the race interesting.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Biden is projected to win in Vermont and Oklahoma

ABC News also projects that Biden will win in Vermont and Oklahoma, two of the states I'm watching tonight. Biden is a favorite to win across the country, but there is still a Democratic primary tonight.

—Monica Potts, 538


In California, it's the end of the road (or just the beginning)

In several of California's open congressional districts, tonight could be the end of any suspense about who the next representative will be. Or, it could be the start of an eight-month intraparty slog.

That's because California's unique all-party primary system — where the top two primary vote-getters advance to the general election — allows for either a traditional contest between a Democrat and a Republican or a fight between members of the same party in the general election, and it's not always obvious which one you're going to get. That's the case in at least four open-seat races today — three Democratic and one Republican.

In California's 16th District, there are nine Democrats but just two Republicans vying to replace Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo. While limited polling of the district suggests that former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo or Santa Clara Supervisor Joe Simitian, both Democrats, are the front-runners, if one of the two Republicans consolidates most of the GOP vote and the Democratic vote scatters among the many candidates, a Republican could finish in the top two. In the 2022 primary, the Republican candidates didn't meet that threshold, splitting a combined 22 percent of the vote; the four GOP candidates in the state's Senate race won a combined 24 percent in the district. A Republican advancing would ensure that whichever Democrat also finished ahead would win the general election in November, given the district's partisan bent. But if two Democrats finish in the top two, it'll be a real race.

Same goes in the 30th District, where Adam Schiff is leaving to run for Senate. Twelve Democrats and just two Republicans will appear on the ballot there. In the 2022 primary, four GOP House candidates totaled 21 percent, and Senate GOP candidates combined for a smaller 22 percent. Democratic state legislators Anthony Portantino and Laura Friedman, and Democratic former city attorney Mike Feuer are the front-runners for this seat; if two of those three make it to the general election, it will be an expensive and sharp-elbowed race to November, but if one of the Republicans squeezes in, it's basically over.

In the 31st District, where Democrat Grace Napolitano is retiring, six Democrats and two Republicans are running. In 2022, the one Republican running for the seat, Daniel Martinez, advanced to the general by winning 37 percent of the vote in the primary. Former Rep. Gil Cisneros, state Sens. Susan Rubio and Bob Archuleta, former Monrovia Mayor Mary Ann Lutz and attorney Greg Hafif are all running well-funded Democratic campaigns, creating the possibility that Martinez, who is running again, could finish in the top two instead of two Democrats, effectively ending this race tonight.

And in Kevin McCarthy's old seat, the 20th District, it's a similar story with the parties reversed. There, the two Democrats will probably combine for around 30 percent of the primary vote (in 2022, the House candidates combined for 30 percent and the Senate candidates for 32 percent), while six Republicans fight over the remaining 70 percent (a seventh dropped out but remains on the ballot).

Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections