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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ABC News projects Haley will win Vermont

And now ABC also projects that Haley will win Vermont. The race remains super close, however, and it’s not yet clear how delegates will be awarded.

—Monica Potts, 538


California voters don’t view either party favorably

Polls have now closed in California, where all parties run on a single primary ballot (other than in presidential races). Unfortunately, neither party is particularly popular in the state. According to a February survey from the Public Policy Institute of California, likely primary voters in California don’t have a favorable view of either political party: The Democratic party is underwater by 10 percentage points, with 44 percent of likely voters saying they have a favorable impression of the party and 54 percent saying they have an unfavorable view. The Republican party fares even worse, with a net favorability of -55 points, 22 percent favorable and 77 percent unfavorable.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Haley likely to win Vermont, but the critical margin is still up in the air

The New York Times and the Associated Press have projected that Haley will win the Republican primary in Vermont, making it the second win for her after Washington, D.C. (ABC News has not yet made a projection in this race.)

While Trump remains ahead on the delegate count, the win could give some juice to her campaign. She's vowed to stay in because she says that Trump and Biden are both too old and out of touch, and she has been capturing a sizable minority of primary voters who are unhappy with the former president in many states across the country. Still, she'll need to get a majority of the final vote to take all of the delegates, and that remains up in the air. With 92 percent of the expected vote in, she has 49.7 percent to Trump's 46 percent. If neither candidate reaches 50.1 percent, they'll split the state's delegates.

—Monica Potts, 538


Heading to a runoff in North Carolina’s 13th?

North Carolina’s 13th District is yet another Democratic-held seat that North Carolina Republicans redrew this year to be safely red. Unsurprisingly, the GOP primary attracted a wide field, and with 67 percent of the expected vote counted according to the Associated Press, attorney Kelly Daughtry is in first place with 29 percent, followed by former federal prosecutor Brad Knott with 18 percent, businessman DeVan Barbour with 17 percent and yet another businessman Fred Von Canon with 16 percent. As a reminder, if no one gets 30 percent, the runner-up is entitled to request a runoff.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


Why the 2016 Republican primary vote suggested Haley could win Vermont

As Monica just noted, about the only drama in the presidential primary contests tonight can be found in Vermont, where Haley actually might defeat Trump in a traditional, state-run primary (unlike the party-run primary she won in Washington, D.C., over the weekend).

So, what's going on in Vermont? Fundamentally, the Republican primary electorate just isn't as conservative in Vermont. I've been using the 2016 Republican nomination race as a back-of-the-napkin guide to the makeup of the GOP electorate this year, and it's been useful. At this point, we could split the GOP into two parts: those who voted for Trump, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, who tend to make up the Trumpier part of the GOP now; and those who backed Marco Rubio and John Kasich, who aren't as inclined to back Trump. Looking at how the Super Tuesday states voted in 2016, you'll notice that Vermont is the only state voting today in which the combined vote share for Rubio and Kasich outdistanced the Trump, Cruz and Carson cohort.

Back in 2016, the types of voters who backed Rubio and Kasich tended to be more moderate and more likely to hold a four-year college degree. In that sense, they attracted parts of the GOP coalition (and beyond) that make up much of Haley's coalition this year. As we already discussed, some Democratic-leaning voters may have helped Haley in every contest, and Vermont happens to also be a very blue state full of those voters.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538