Some Democrats have been pushing for voters to choose uncommitted on ballots where it appears, primarily to protest Biden's stance on the conflict in Gaza. However, as of now, it doesn't look like there's much difference between voters choosing uncommitted now versus in Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.

In Massachusetts so far tonight, 10 percent of voters have selected "no preference". That's the same as the percentage of Massachusetts Democratic primary voters that voted no preference in 2012. In North Carolina, Biden is the only name on the ballot, and 11 percent have chosen no preference. But in 2012, when Obama was the only name on the ballot in the state, there were 21 percent that voted no preference.

Other states have even lower uncommitted vote numbers. In Colorado, uncommitted has 7 percent of the vote, and it has 5 percent in Alabama and just 3 percent in Tennessee.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

North Carolina now has more than 25 counties reporting most of their vote, so let the analyses begin! As in other primaries this cycle, the percentage of residents with a college degree is a strong predictor of which North Carolina counties are more likely to be supportive of Haley over Trump. That won't surprise folks who have joined us for prior live-blogs this election cycle. In Jones County in the eastern part of the state, a relatively low 16 percent of residents over 25 have completed a four-year degree (compared to an average of 24 percent across all counties in the state), and Trump has amassed a whopping 90 percent of the vote so far. It also looks like Trump does better in counties that are less densely populated, but we'll need to see more results to be sure.

—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor

I mentioned this earlier, but I'm tracking candidates endorsed by the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List. So far, the group can claim two likely victories: North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore in North Carolina's 14th District and Rep. Mayra Flores in Texas's 34th District. Buckhout is leading in her race for the 1st District in North Carolina. The only Susan B. Anthony List endorsee we're tracking tonight who is trailing is state Rep. Grey Mills, who's in second place behind Rep. Pat Harrington. Harrington dropped a bid for the 14th District, where he would have faced Moore, to switch to the 10th. The 10th District's incumbent, Patrick McHenry, is not seeking reelection.

—Monica Potts, 538

In Texas's 32nd District, where ten Democrats were running in today's open primary, state Rep. Julie Johnson is leading with 33 percent of the vote reporting. Johnson has backing from EMILY's List, which was a good sign. According to our analysis of the 2022 primaries, 85 percent of candidates in open primaries endorsed by EMILY's List's won their races.

—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor

As the Super Tuesday results come in, there will be a lot of attention to how they compare with the 2016 primaries. In early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, Trump has tended to do better in the places where he did well eight years ago. But we should be careful not to overstate the continuity. While Trump was seen as a relatively moderate Republican back in 2016, he now anchors the conservative end of the political spectrum.

In January 2016, Diana Mutz and I asked a population-based panel of Americans 26 and older whom they supported in the GOP presidential primary. Back then, Trump's best group of GOP primary voters were actually those who called themselves "moderates," while Ted Cruz won respondents who said they were "extremely conservative." Later that year, we asked all respondents to place Trump on a 7-point ideology scale, where "1" meant "extremely liberal" and 7 meant "extremely conservative." Trump scored 5.0, placing him almost exactly at "slightly conservative."

But after Trump had been president for three years and had overseen major tax cuts and an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act — not to mention being the face of a growing contingent of MAGA-inspired conservatives — perceptions of him had changed. In January 2020, our panelists rated him a 5.6, meaning they saw him as closer to "conservative" than to "slightly conservative."

Other data reinforces the idea that perceptions of Trump continued to shift, and that he shed the perception of being a moderate. In April 2021, I teamed up with Hans Noel to ask political activists who was more conservative among pairs of prominent politicians. From those comparisons, we generated perceived ideology scores. By then, Trump was perceived by all respondents to be fairly far on the conservative end of the spectrum, with just ten GOP politicians to his right versus 43 to his left. (The Republicans who were perceived to be on his right are generally seen as Trump allies, such as Sens. Tommy Tuberville, Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton.) It's noteworthy that at the time, Nikki Haley was ranked just two slots less conservative than Trump.

Noel and I replicated the analysis in November 2023 in a YouGov survey of American adults. Among Republican survey respondents, Ron DeSantis was thought to be the second most conservative figure, with only Ted Cruz viewed as more conservative. But Trump was also far on the conservative end of the spectrum, ranking fifth out of 23 Republicans on the list. It's no surprise that in that same survey, Trump's best group for the primary was respondents who called themselves "very conservative."

Haley, by contrast, had come to be seen as closer to the center of the GOP — she was viewed as more conservative than Mitch McConnell, Chris Christie and Kevin McCarthy, but also more liberal than fellow primary candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Mike Pence, and Trump allies like Hawley and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Haley's best group in the November survey was self-described "moderates," although Trump still won that group with 51 percent compared to Haley's 18.

That reflects the fact that DeSantis and Haley cut somewhat different profiles among GOP primary voters. While Haley is the Trump challenger still in the race, DeSantis seems to have been the bigger threat to the conservative base that Trump has come to rely on. And with DeSantis out of the race, Trump has been able to consolidate the GOP's conservative wing, which has increasingly been defined by his politics since 2016.

—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor