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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Tied again in Vermont

With 70 percent of the expected vote reporting in Vermont, Trump and Haley are tied again at 48 percent each. If Haley wins there, it might compel her to stay in past tonight, but the overall delegate math is still against her.

—Monica Potts, 538


Book recommendation about U.S. territories

Want to know more about territories like American Samoa, which participate in the nomination process but aren't states — and thus don't have Electoral College votes or representation in Congress? I recommend this fascinating book, "The Not-Quite-States of America" by journalist Doug Mack. It explores the contradictions in the status of these areas and how it affects the people who live there.

—Julia Azari, 538 contributor


Biden loses American Samoa to no-name candidate

Well, well, well. It turns out neither Trump nor Biden will sweep every presidential nominating contest this year. ABC News can confirm that Biden has lost the Democratic caucuses in the territory of American Samoa to Jason Palmer.

Who is Jason Palmer, you ask? One of the many no-name candidates who runs for president every year. According to DDHQ’s Derek Willis, Palmer actually visited American Samoa to campaign, which explains how he was able to accomplish something that neither Marianne Williamson nor Dean Phillips has been able to do this year.

P.S. What’s up with American Samoa and Democratic caucuses? You may recall that, back in 2020, it was the only state or territory to vote for Michael Bloomberg.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Democratic precincts are voting 'No Preference' in North Carolina

—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor


The history of Super Tuesday

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