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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More about suburban Boston's politics

Nathaniel just mentioned Nikki Haley's strength in the well-educated, affluent communities around Boston. If you want to learn more about that group, its connection to the defense industry, its ambivalent views on racial integration, and its long-term movement into the Democratic coalition, check out historian Lily Geismer's book "Don't Blame Us".

—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor


Trump pivots to the general

Trump is speaking now (right on schedule, for once!) and it's one of those "pivot to the general" speeches candidates give once they win the nomination. But it's also like he's playing his greatest hits on 1.5x speed: In the last five minutes, he has talked about immigration (saying migrants are coming in on airplanes), ISIS (he says he wiped them out in four weeks), inflation (chastising "Bidenomics") and energy generation, and he attacked Biden for his age (at one point claiming that the president cannot lift a beach chair which "weighs nine ounces").

One thing missing? Any mention of Haley. Remember, Trump is not technically the nominee until the convention says so, and he's not the presumptive nominee until he wins enough delegates. He is having a super Super Tuesday tonight, but he's not quite there ... yet.

—G. Elliott Morris, 538


Dean Phillips on dropout watch

Dean Phillips's tepid campaign may not last until the morning. Phillips has previously stated that he would drop out and endorse the likely Democratic nominee if his campaign wasn't viable after Super Tuesday. So far, his highest level of support tonight is in Oklahoma, where he's currently pulling 9 percent of the Democratic primary vote. That's closely followed by his home state of Minnesota, where he's winning a similar level of support. But at least he can say he won something today: tiny Cimarron County in the Oklahoma panhandle, where he currently leads Biden by five votes out of 21 total that were cast.

—Cooper Burton, 538


Town-by-town results in Massachusetts show Haley’s coalition

Trump is winning Massachusetts 61 percent to 36 percent, but as you can see in the map below, Haley is winning Boston and many of its well-to-do western suburbs like Concord, Wellesley and Weston. While these towns are now solidly Democratic, they are also home to a lot of the fiscally conservative, socially liberal voters who have supported moderate Republicans for governor like Mitt Romney and Charlie Baker. It’s basically the exact kind of well-educated voter that hates Trump but misses the old Republican Party, which Haley has become an avatar for.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


So who is Mark Robinson?

ABC News projects North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson to be the Republican nominee for Governor in the state. This was the outcome that was widely expected, as Robinson had been leading the race. It's expected that he'll square off against state Attorney General Josh Stein, who is leading the Democratic primary, and it looks like it'll be a competitive race. If you're not familiar with Robinson, he first gained attention in 2018 when a video of him speaking at a Greensboro City Council meeting in support of gun rights went viral. In 2020, he was elected as Lieutenant Governor, the state's first Black Lieutenant Governor, and he has been a controversial figure.

A devout Christian, Robinson stays true to his roots by tending toward impassioned, sermon-style speeches. However, those speeches have often veered into inflammatory and bigoted language, particularly towards the LGBTQ+ community. As recently as February, he said that transgender women should be arrested for using the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity and suggested they "go outside." He has said straight couples are "superior" to gay couples, that "God made him issues, and that anyone in the GOP who doesn't support him will face God's "vengeance.". Suffice to say, he's a controversial figure, not unlike the party's leader, and will represent a significant shift in North Carolina state politics if he's elected to the governor's mansion this November.

Kaleigh Rogers, 538