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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California's Senate race looks like it'll be a snoozefest in November

ABC News now projects that Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey, a former Major League Baseball player, will advance in California's U.S. Senate race. This will set up a traditional Democrat-versus-Republican contest in November, which is unlikely to be interesting in deep-blue California. With 41 percent of the estimated vote reporting, Schiff leads Garvey 37 percent to 29 percent. That suggests that Schiff's spending on ads to improve Garvey's name recognition among Republicans succeeded, allowing the congressman to avoid facing fellow Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who is in third with 15 percent. And while we are still waiting for more returns, our map of the top-two Senate primary shows only Schiff and Garvey holding leads in any county that has results, speaking to their edge.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Mark Harris on track for a comeback

With all precincts reporting in North Carolina’s 8th congressional district, Baptist minister Mark Harris is winning 30.44 percent of the vote per North Carolina's State Board of Elections, successfully avoiding a runoff and securing his spot on the ballot in the solidly Republican district after ballot fraud allegations kept him out of Congress in 2018.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Race for chief justice in Arkansas

I've been keeping half an eye on the race for the chief justice for the state Supreme Court in Arkansas, and the four-way race is very close. With almost all of the expected vote in, two sitting justices, Justice Rhonda Wood and Justice Karen Baker, are virtually tied at about 27 percent each, according to The New York Times. If they remain the top two candidates when all the votes are in, they'll had to a runoff in November. Fun fact: Baker is from my hometown of Clinton, Arkansas.

—Monica Potts, 538


The ongoing Republican delegate math

A big question is whether Trump is line to mathematically clinch the nomination next Tuesday, March 12 — the earliest possible date on the calendar that a candidate (namely, Trump) could claim a majority of the GOP's 2,429 national delegates. And it looks like it could be close.

Trump entered the night with 247 delegates to Haley's 43, according to 538's delegate benchmark tracker, and he looks in line to win roughly 775 to 805 delegates out of 854 that were up for grabs today. That would put him at around 1,025 to 1,055 delegates. If he's on the short end of that range, a Trump sweep of all delegates in contests after today up through March 12 would put him just above the 1,215 mark to clinch. This makes the Vermont result, where Haley is just above 50 percent, pretty important, because it would mean the difference between Trump claiming about 0 delegates, or claiming 8 should Haley fall short of a majority in her victory.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 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