Super Tuesday 2024 live: Donald Trump likely to win primaries as 16 US states vote
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Super Tuesday is usually one of the most hotly anticipated fixtures of the US electoral cycle, the point at which the race to be nominated for president usually has a big shake out as 16 states and one territory go to the polls or declare their results.
It isn’t quite the same this year at all.
For the Republicans, former president Donald Trump is so far ahead of his only rival, Nikki Haley, that the main focus is on whether she will even continue to campaign after tonight’s results come in, despite recently scoring her first primary victory in the District of Columbia.
And for the incumbent president Joe Biden there are no serious challengers, but there is an opportunity to assess the extent to which Democratic party voters still have enthusiasm for the man they put into the White House to replace Trump just over three years ago.
Here are the headlines …
Yesterday North Dakota held its Republican presidential caucuses and Donald Trump is expected to win convincingly according to the AP. However, turnout was low.
Joe Biden has announced a “strike force” to crack down on “unfair and illegal” prices. The new panel will target businesses “when they try to rip off Americans”, the Biden administration said.
Yesterday my colleague David Smith had a scene-setter for today, where he had spoken to Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster who had a long track record of advising Republican campaigns before Trump seized control of the party. Lunz told the Guardian:
It never mattered less. I don’t know any political event that’s got more attention for being less relevant. The decision has been made. The choice is clear. You know who the two nominees are and 70% of Americans would rather it not be so.
The gap [in polling between Trump and Biden] is widening because Biden is collapsing. With the economy getting stronger and conditions on the ground getting better, Joe Biden is still getting weaker. That’s a three-alarm fire in America. The lights are flashing, the people are screaming but Joe Biden doesn’t hear them.
Here are some of the nuts and bolts of what is happening today. The states that are involved are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. The territory of American Samoa will be caucusing.
That spread from northern to southern states and from east to west coasts in the US mainland means results may take a while to come in.
AP notes that Super Tuesday has the largest delegate haul of any day in the primary calendar, representing more than one-third of the total delegates available in each party’s nomination process and more than 70% of the delegates needed to mathematically clinch either party’s nomination. But neither Trump nor Biden will be able to claim the title of “presumptive nominee” at the close of play.
The earliest that could happen is 12 March for Trump and 19 March for Biden. Trump would need to win about 90% of the nearly 1,100 delegates at stake until then in order to clinch the nomination that day. Biden would need to win about 77% of the nearly 2,300 delegates at stake before 19 March to ensure his nomination by that date.
And while we are waiting for those results to come in and delegates to be assigned, a lot of people in the US will be pondering the mental acuity of both Biden and Trump. A poll released Monday suggested 63% of Americans say they are not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability, 57% say the same about Trump.
Donald Trump has continued his domination of the race to be the Republican nominee for president with an expected victory in Monday’s North Dakota Republican caucuses.
As his campaign headed into Super Tuesday the former president will most likely stretch his lead over Nikki Haley by all 29 of North Dakota’s delegates. If he wins at least 60% of the vote he gets all of the delegates. If his vote is less than 60%, then the delegates will be split proportional to the respective votes for Trump and Haley.
North Dakota Gov Doug Burgum was quoted by AP as telling Republicans in a virtual address to caucusgoers:
I think we’re going to send a message that is going to be a kick-off to tomorrow, which is president Donald Trump is going to close this out, this is going to be the end of the trail, and we’re going to say we have a nominee, and let’s go after it, and beat Joe Biden in the fall.
Two other candidates were on the ballot besides Trump and Haley. The other candidates were Florida businessman David Stuckenberg and Texas businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley, who recently ended his campaign.
The Democratic Party holds its North Dakota primary on 30 March.
Super Tuesday is usually one of the most hotly anticipated fixtures of the US electoral cycle, the point at which the race to be nominated for president usually has a big shake out as 16 states and one territory go to the polls or declare their results.
It isn’t quite the same this year at all.
For the Republicans, former president Donald Trump is so far ahead of his only rival, Nikki Haley, that the main focus is on whether she will even continue to campaign after tonight’s results come in, despite recently scoring her first primary victory in the District of Columbia.
And for the incumbent president Joe Biden there are no serious challengers, but there is an opportunity to assess the extent to which Democratic party voters still have enthusiasm for the man they put into the White House to replace Trump just over three years ago.
Here are the headlines …
Yesterday North Dakota held its Republican presidential caucuses and Donald Trump is expected to win convincingly according to the AP. However, turnout was low.
Joe Biden has announced a “strike force” to crack down on “unfair and illegal” prices. The new panel will target businesses “when they try to rip off Americans”, the Biden administration said.