While we like to think of Vermont as the home of Ben & Jerry’s and Bernie Sanders, from a historical perspective, it’s actually among the most Republican states in American history. It voted for every Republican candidate for president from 1856 to 1988 (except for Lyndon Johnson’s landslide in 1964), and former Sen. Pat Leahy was fond of noting that he was the only Democrat the state had ever sent to the Senate. So there’s something poetic about the state asserting itself in a GOP primary tonight.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections

Polling of the Vermont Republican primary was pretty thin this year, with only one poll released in the last month from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. That survey suggested a fairly easy win for Trump; he was ahead of Haley by 30 percentage points. In addition, 58 percent of likely GOP primary voters in the state said they would be dissatisfied or angry if Haley were to win the nomination, while just 29 percent said the same of Trump.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

Remember, dear reader, the presidential primary is all about the delegates. So far Trump has 276 to Haley's 43. That total is so lopsided that the only real question left is when, not if, Trump will win. The next big primary day is March 12 — let's take a look at what Trump needs to do today in order to clinch the delegate majority of 1,215 on the 12th.

Here's the math: There are 199 delegates up for grabs in contests between March 8 and March 12. Assuming he wins all of those 199 delegates, he would need to win 1,215 - 199 = 1,016 by the time all Super Tuesday ballots are counted. As noted, he's already won 276 of those delegates, meaning he has to pick up 769 delegates more, out of the 865 delegates up for grabs tonight. That's about 89% — which is a little higher than the 87% of delegates he has won from states that have voted so far.

Trump could totally pull that off, in which case we would start calling him the "presumptive nominee" next Tuesday. Otherwise, he will have to wait until March 19, when there are 370 more delegates up for grabs.

—G. Elliott Morris, 538

If you feel like sitting on the edge of your seat, like we do, The New York Times Needle is back in action tonight and has Haley ever-so-slightly ahead in Vermont at the moment.

—Monica Potts, 538

Super Tuesday has over 40 years of history that are deeply entwined with a bunch of issues in the presidential nomination process. The term "Super Tuesday" was first used in 1980 but was promoted by Democrats in 1988 as a deliberate effort to give an advantage to more moderate candidates. This was a direct reaction to the idea that the party's 1984 nominee, Walter Mondale, had lost to Ronald Reagan because he was too liberal. This strategy didn't really work out, though, and Democrats ended up nominating another northern liberal, Michael Dukakis.

In other words, this early attempt at a Super Tuesday brought some of the disadvantages of a regional primary, reducing the amount of attention on individual states and pressuring states to move their primaries earlier without really strengthening the influence of the region. Another drawback was that, by trying to enhance Southern influence by holding contests early, Super Tuesday also contributed to the "front-loading" problem", or the issue of having too many delegates selected at the beginning of the primary calendar.

Over time, Super Tuesday has taken on other significance as an important turning point in the race. As party politics scholar Caitlin Jewitt noted, in 2016, everyone thought that Sen. Ted Cruz needed to do well on Super Tuesday, which was heavily concentrated in Southern states where he needed to rack up wins — and when that didn't happen, it was a significant blow to his candidacy. For Biden in 2020, Super Tuesday marked the point when the party consolidated behind him. And in 2008, Super Tuesday made it clear that the Democratic nomination was a real race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as neither one scored a decisive victory.

It's hard to know exactly how this will play out in 2024. Republicans don't have the same ideological history with the big primary day as Democrats do. But the potential for a turning point in the race is there: Because so many delegates are at stake today, unless Haley wins a significant share of them, it may not make sense for her to stay in the race after tonight.

—Julia Azari, 538 contributor