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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How will military towns break?

With results coming in from Virginia, I'm keeping an eye on the Commonwealth's southeastern corner. Not only is it home to Virginia Beach, the largest city in Virginia, it's also home to a substantial number of military families. In 2020 at least, donations from those serving in the U.S. military split more evenly between Democrats and Republicans than some might expect. So far, Trump is winning Virginia Beach by roughly a 2 to 1 margin, while Haley is keeping it closer in neighboring Norfolk with 42 percent of the vote so far.

—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor


The Maine Event

ABC News projects that Trump will win the GOP primary in Maine. With about 8 percent of the expected vote counted, he leads Haley, 69 percent to 22 percent.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections


But since we're talking about the general ...

Folks who are reading a 538 live blog have probably seen the general election polling showing Trump leading nationally by 2-3 percentage points and leading in the battleground state by more like 3-5 points. That is the answer you are looking for if you want to understand the current state of the races. Emphasis on current, meaning 8 months before the actual election when polls are historically not predictive. Now, there may be caveats about polls shifting less than usual over the coming months because Trump and Biden are already so well defined. But that's a theory, not a fact.

One dynamic in the primary that I do think is worth thinking about in understanding whether those numbers will shift or how, is where the challenge is coming from in both parties. Trump is being challenged by someone who is ideologically closer to Biden than to his Right flank. Biden's most enthusiastic opposition is coming from his left flank, aka not ideologically anywhere close to Trump. Folks always have the option of staying home or voting third party, but if I was Trump's campaign I would not like that dynamic ... particularly given that Biden's victory in 2020 came from an overperformance among independent/moderate voters.

Look at me, doing the thing I just said we shouldn't do.

—Galen Druke, 538


It looks like Trump and Haley are neck and neck in Vermont right now

With 28 percent of the expected vote reported, the Republican presidential primary in Vermont looks so close. Right now, Trump and Haley are tied with 48 percent.

—Monica Potts, 538


Trump leads in primary polls in virtually every state

If the polls are right, there will be very little drama tonight in presidential races: Trump has massive leads over Haley in virtually every state. For instance, here's what our primary polling averages say in the six states with enough polling to calculate one:

Trump also leads by at least 42 percentage points in the few state-level polls we have this year from Alabama, Maine, Minnesota and Oklahoma. His lead is smaller, though still substantial, in the most recent surveys of Utah (27 points) and Vermont (30 points). Unfortunately, we're flying blind in the last three states; we don't have any polls of Arkansas since last fall, or any polls of Alaska or Colorado, period.

But what if … the polls are wrong? Even in the states where we've calculated averages, there is precious little truly recent polling. The only polls of Super Tuesday states conducted entirely within the last month were four of California, two of Maine, one of Minnesota, two of North Carolina, one of Texas, one of Vermont and one of Virginia. That's not a lot of data to go off.

Plus, primary polls so far this year have overestimated Trump's margin over Haley. This isn't necessarily unusual; since 2000, presidential primary polls have had an average error of 9 points. But the fact that the direction of that error has been consistent so far is … interesting. We usually caution against trying to predict the direction of polling error in advance, but this could — could — indicate that pollsters' likely-voter models for the primary are too weighted toward the Trump wing of the GOP.

As Geoffrey and I wrote yesterday, there are certain states — Colorado, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia — that seem demographically favorable for Haley. Despite what the polls say, I wouldn't be totally shocked if Haley pulled off a win in one of them. As noted, Colorado hasn't seen any polling this cycle, and Massachusetts hasn't seen any in a month. And while a poll gave Trump a 30-point lead in Vermont a few weeks back, the most recent poll of Virginia put Trump's lead over Haley at just 8 points among likely voters.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538