Joe Biden and Donald Trump were both expected to cruise to easy victories on Super Tuesday. In early results, Biden captured wins in Iowa, via mail-in ballot, and in Vermont, Virginia, North Carolina, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Tennessee just after polls closed. Trump has also won Republican primaries in North Carolina, Maine, Oklahoma and Virginia.
The United States has not witnessed a primary campaign season with so little competitive tension since political primaries began to dominate the nomination process in the 1970s. Neither the current president nor the former president secured the nomination of their respective parties, but both are likely to do so within the next two weeks.
Biden sweeps, but with warning signs
Biden requires 1,968 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. Going into Super Tuesday, he held 206. Primaries and caucuses today offered another 1,420. Assuming Biden continues to sweep through primary contests, the earliest he could secure the nomination on the first ballot would be 19 March with results from Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.
Democratic candidates can win delegates with 15% or more of the vote in a congressional district. California’s 424 Democratic delegates are the richest haul of the evening. California’s election count is notoriously slow, and final results are unlikely to emerge until Wednesday morning, but is Williamson’s best chance to win additional delegates.
Votes for write-in candidates typically take days to tabulate, but observers have been acutely watching for “uncommitted” or “none of the above” protest votes to register displeasure with the Biden administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war. The campaign has gained more ground after a strong showing in Michigan last week.
William Galvin, secretary of state for Massachusetts, told reporters today that if enough voters selected “no preference”, a delegate may be assigned to that option.
Trump marches on, but party rifts visible
Trump entered Super Tuesday with 273 delegates, requiring 1,215 needed to win the nomination outright at the Republican National Convention. Super Tuesday offered 865 delegates, but Nikki Haley’s continued campaign has prevented Trump from claiming all of them. With tonight’s results, the earliest Trump could secure the nomination is also 19 March with Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.
Trump gained a late-game reprieve in Colorado when the US supreme court unanimously ruled on Monday that states cannot unilaterally kick a presidential candidate off the ballot using the 14th amendment and was expected to win Colorado.
Haley won the District of Columbia primary on Sunday, becoming the first woman to win a Republican presidential primary in history. Only about 2,000 people voted in the primary, however.
Notable state races hold more upsets
California voters have been focused on the state’s highly-contested down ballot race to fill the seat held by Dianne Feinstein, the late US senator. California places the top two candidates from the primary in a runoff. Of the 27 contenders Adam Schiff, the US representative who has long been a Trump antagonist in Congress, was expected to take the top spot. Katie Porter, a Democratic congresswoman, and Steven Garvey, the Republican former baseball player, and Barbara Lee trailed Schiff in polls.
Texas held state and federal legislative primaries Tuesday, presenting Texan voters with a Republican grudge match over state politics. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has been on a revenge tour to punish legislators who voted for his impeachment on corruption allegations last year, issuing a long list of endorsed challengers to incumbents.
Dade Phelan, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, presented the biggest target. Paxton, Trump and Matt Rinaldi, the Texas GOP chair, have all endorsed David Covey in a primary challenge to Phelan, with bruising and well-funded attack ads flooding his house district.
Meanwhile, Democrats are lining up a challenger to Ted Cruz, the US senator. The contenders are Democratic Representative Colin Allred and Roland Gutierrez, who has emerged as a national gun control advocate following the Uvalde shooting.
Alabama voters will vote in a newly-redrawn second congressional district . The US supreme court forced Alabama to redraw its congressional map last year, declaring it a racial gerrymander that illegally diminished the political power of Black voters. As a result, two white Republican congressmen – Jerry Carl and Barry Moore – faced each other for a single seat after their districts were redrawn.
Notably Tom Parker, chief justice of Alabama’s supreme court, who issued a religiously-inflected ruling on the personhood of frozen embryos last month, was not on the ballot tonight. Alabama bars judges over the age of 70 from running for re-election; his term ends in 2025.
In North Carolina, the Republican state legislature redrew congressional maps last year after winning a majority on the state supreme court. As a result, the current delegation of 14 congresspeople will likely change from a 7-7 split to a 10-4 Republican majority. Five representatives opted to leave Congress and forgo contests in the redrawn districts: Democratic representatives Jeff Jackson, Kathy Manning and Wiley Nickel, and Republican representatives Dan Bishop and Patrick McHenry.
The seats likely to flip have attracted sharp primary contests, particularly the 13th congressional district, which is now drawn as a horseshoe encircling suburban Raleigh.
North Carolina’s first congressional district in the state’s coastal north-east has historically held a Democratic, mostly-Black majority. Lawmakers redrew it to be much more competitive for a Republican candidate. Representative Don Davis beat the 2022 Republican nominee, businesswoman and perennial candidate Sandy Smith, by four points. Smith drew a primary challenger this year.
Meanwhile Mark Robinson, the lieutenant governor, has won the Republican nomination for governor, to succeed North Carolina’s term-limited Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. Robinson, North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor, has a history of sexist and inflammatory comments, particularly about Jews. He described the movie Black Panther as “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist”. He then followed to say it “was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets”. Robinson has described Covid-19 as a “globalist” conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump.
Robinson’s opponent will be Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general, in November. The Democratic nominee would be North Carolina’s first Jewish governor.
Amanda Smith is a dedicated U.S. correspondent with a passion for uncovering the stories that shape the nation. With a background in political science, she provides in-depth analysis and insightful commentary on domestic affairs, ensuring readers are well-informed about the latest developments across the United States.
