By Super Tuesday 2024 saw Trump and Biden mop up delegates across the country. But each man faced an upset loss, Biden in American Samoa, and Trump in Vermont.
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump dominated Super Tuesday’s primary contests from coast to coast, each winning hundreds of delegates and moving much closer to clinching their respective parties’ nominations.
Biden walked away from the night with at least 1,424 delegates, slightly more than 72% of the total he needs to secure the Democratic nomination.
Trump ended the day with a minimum of 946 delegates, or 78% of the 1,215 total he requires in order to formally become the Republican party’s presumptive nominee.
Yet amid their victorious romps through states like California, Maine and Arkansas, both men lost unexpected contests that highlighted potential obstacles to uniting their parties’ most loyal voters behind them.
Biden lost American Samoa’s Democratic caucus to political newcomer Jason Palmer, an entrepreneur who has never set foot on the South Pacific islands that make the U.S. territory. Only 91 total votes were cast in the caucus, and Palmer won 50 of them. Biden came away with 41.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley also scored an upset victory over Trump in Vermont’s Republican primary, winning 50% of the vote, while Trump secured just 45%.
Haley will drop out of the 2024 presidential race Wednesday, a source familiar with her plans confirmed to NBC News.
Haley won’t announce an endorsement Wednesday, two people told NBC News. Instead, she will encourage Trump to earn the support of Republicans and independent voters who backed her, one of the sources said.
Live: NBC News Super Tuesday 2024 Primary Election Results
Below are NBC’s projections for the presidential primary and caucus winners, as of 1:00 a.m. ET Wednesday.
In addition to the presidential race, several down ballot contests Tuesday were closely watched.
None more so than California’s Senate primary, where Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey won the top two spots in a race to fill the seat vacated by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
California is a deep blue state, so Tuesday’s results were especially promising for Schiff. In November, the Trump antagonist will be the only Democrat on the ballot in a state that has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since the 1960’s.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff will win California’s Senate primary race, followed by Republican former MLB star Steve Garvey, NBC News projects.
The projected result means Schiff and Garvey will advance to the general election to compete for the Senate seat formerly held by Dianne Feinstein.
Schiff and Garvey defeated a large field of challengers in California’s “jungle primary” race, where the top two finishers advance, regardless of party affiliation. Among them were Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, who both campaigned on progressive platforms.
alifornia is a deep blue state, so Tuesday’s results portend especially well for Schiff, who is now the only Democrat in the race.
President Joe Biden won California in 2020 by nearly 30 points over Donald Trump. The last Republican presidential candidate to win California was George H.W. Bush, in 1988.
— Kevin Breuninger
The California Senate primary result is too close to call, NBC projected shortly after polls in the state closed at 11 p.m. ET.
California has an all-party “jungle” primary system, in which the top two candidates, regardless of party, move ahead to the general election.
— Kevin Breuninger
Donald Trump will win California’s Republican presidential primary, moving him one large step closer to clinching the GOP nomination, NBC News projects.
The call came shortly after polls closed at 11 p.m. ET. Trump was widely expected to defeat Nikki Haley in the California primary and win all 169 of its available delegates.
The Golden State carries the biggest delegate bounty of the 15 states holding primary elections on Super Tuesday, where 865 GOP delegates are up for grabs.
Trump came into the week with 276 delegates. He needs 1,215 to secure the Republican presidential nomination.
— Kevin Breuninger
President Joe Biden will win California’s Democratic primary, NBC News projects.
The call came moments after polls closed in the state at 11 p.m. ET. There are 424 pledged delegates up for grabs in the state’s Democratic primary, more than in any other Super Tuesday race.
Biden was widely expected to easily trounce his few long-shot primary challengers in the Golden State and the remaining contests on the road to the Democratic presidential nomination.
— Kevin Breuninger
In a grim Super Tuesday victory speech, Donald Trump portrayed America under President Joe Biden as a country on the brink of death. And he blamed migrants for many of the nation’s woes.
“Our cities are choking to death. Our states are dying. And frankly, our country is dying,” Trump claimed in a dark, apocalyptic 18-minute speech at his Florida resort home Mar-a-Lago.
A few hundred of his friends and supporters had gathered to celebrate his primary wins.
Trump alleged that Biden and his allies “want open borders, and open borders are going to destroy our country.”
“Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime, and that’s Biden migrant crime,” Trump claimed.
There is paltry evidence for Trump’s accusations. According to an NBC News analysis of 2024 crime data, the U.S. cities that have received the most migrants have experienced decreasing overall crime levels.
“In some ways we’re a third-world country,” Trump said elsewhere in the speech, singling out the border and elections.
Trump for years has falsely claimed that his loss to Biden in the 2020 election was rigged through widespread voter fraud. He continues to falsely claim he won that election.
— Kevin Breuninger
Democratic Texas Rep. Colin Allred will face Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in November, NBC News projects.
Allred is the latest Democrat to try to unseat Cruz, who has been in the Senate since 2013. Former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke tried but failed to beat Cruz during the 2018 election.
– Brian Schwartz
The longshot Democratic challenger to beat President Joe Biden in a Super Tuesday contest was not a Minnesota congressman nor a self-help author.
It was Jason Palmer, a Baltimore-based venture capitalist.
Palmer took 56% of the vote in American Samoa’s Democratic caucus, which is 51 out of the U.S. territory’s total 91 votes cast.
“Honored to announce my victory in the American Samoa presidential primary. Thank you to the incredible community for your support,” Palmer wrote on X Tuesday night. “This win is a testament to the power of our voices. Together, we can rebuild the American Dream and shape a brighter future for all.”
Palmer has worked at Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, according to his campaign website.
Palmer built his campaign platform on boosting small businesses and using his entrepreneurial, capitalist background to “to transform the federal government to run more like a high-tech, highly-efficient, well-respected business that puts its customers’ needs first.”
— Rebecca Picciotto
Nikki Haley is projected by NBC News to win the Republican presidential primary in Vermont.
Haley’s projected victory comes two days after her first primary victory, in the District of Columbia
The former South Carolina governor is the only serious challenger to ex-President Donald Trump in the GOP presidential nomination contest. Haley served as the United States ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration.
Vermont has an open primary system, which allows people to vote in the party primary of their choice, regardless of their political affiliation.
Paul Somerset, a Democrat from Montpelier who owns a property management company, told NBC News, “I voted Republican for the first time in my life because I wanted to vote for Nikki Haley because I would like to see her beat or at least be strong enough to make Trump look weak.”
“This is an anti-Trump vote,” said Somerset. “I’m not voting for Haley.”
Somerset, who was one of several Democrats to describe strategically voting for Haley to thwart Trump in the primary, called the former president’s bid to return to the White House “the most dangerous thing I’ve seen since I’ve been voting in 1978.”
“It scares the hell out of me,” he said.
Vermont has three votes in the Electoral College.
The last Republican presidential nominee to win Vermont in the national election was former President George H.W. Bush, in 1988.
– Dan Mangan
President Joe Biden warned that Donald Trump “is determined to destroy our democracy” as he said Super Tuesday’s results leave American voters “with a clear choice” between him and the Republican former president.
“Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” Biden asked in a statement.
“Four years ago, I ran because of the existential threat Donald Trump posed to the America we all believe in,” Biden said. “Since then, we’ve made enormous progress: 15 million jobs, wages rising faster than inflation, taking on Big Pharma and the gun lobby — and winning. But we have more to do.”
If Trump is returned to the White House, “all of this progress is at risk,” said Biden.
“He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people” said the president.
“He is determined to destroy our democracy, rip away fundamental freedoms like the ability for women to make their own health care decisions, and pass another round of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy — and he’ll do or say anything to put himself in power.”
– Dan Mangan
President Joe Biden will lose the Democratic caucus in American Samoa to little-known candidate Jason Palmer, NBC News projects.
Palmer’s victory is a striking outcome for Biden, who has tallied up win after win Tuesday night.
American Samoa, a U.S. territory, only held a Democratic caucus.
— Rebecca Picciotto
President Joe Biden will win the Democratic primary in Utah, NBC News projects.
Thirty delegates are at stake in the primary.
Susan Cissoko, 35, told NBC 5 that she was voting for Biden because of his support for student loan debt relief, his stance on social services, and because of the ethnic makeup of the Democratic party.
“Although I don’t 100% agree with Biden, he aligns more with my perspective and views over [Donald] Trump and the Republican Party,” Cissoko told the television station while dropping off her mail-in ballot in Provo.
Utah has six votes in the Electoral College, which determines the winner of the presidential election after the popular vote in November.
Republicans hold a nearly 4-to-1 edge over Democrats in registered voters in Utah.
The state has voted for a Democratic presidential nominee in the national election just once since 1952.
President Lyndon Johnson won Utah in 1964, when the Democrat garnered 61% of the national vote, the largest percentage of a U.S. presidential candidate since 1820.
– Dan Mangan
President Joe Biden won the Minnesota Democratic primary, NBC News projects.
The victory extends Biden’s lead in the primary over his rivals that have included Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.
Biden’s wins on Tuesday give him momentum as he faces a tough general election fight against Donald Trump.
– Brian Schwartz
Trump will win Colorado’s Republican presidential primary, NBC News projects, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the state’s ruling to remove the former president from the ballot.
He lost the state to Biden by 55.4% to 41.9% in the 2020 election.
Trump once again defeated challenger Nikki Haley, picking up more Republican delegates on the way to the 1,215 needed to win the nomination.
In December, Colorado’s Supreme Court blocked Trump from the ballot in a primary election for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the U.S. Capitol. U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled Monday that no state can ban a presidential candidate by invoking the insurrection clause of the Constitution.
—Chelsey Cox
Donald Trump has won the Minnesota Republican primary, NBC News projects.
– Brian Schwartz
President Joe Biden will win the Democratic primary in Colorado, NBC News projects, defeating challengers Marianne Williamson, who jumped back into the race last week after suspending her campaign, and Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.
The president won the state during the 2020 election, 55.4% to 41.9% over former President Donald Trump.
Winning the lion’s share of Colorado’s 72 delegates will move Biden steadily closer to the 1,968 delegates he needs to win the Democratic nomination.
—Chelsey Cox
Donald Trump has won the Massachusetts Republican primary, NBC News projects.
Some people who voted for Trump over Nikki Haley said they don’t believe she has a chance to win the general election.
“I don’t think she can win. So I don’t think the Massachusetts primary is going to make a ton of difference because the state isn’t gonna go for Trump so it’s moot. It would be more interesting if we were in Wisconsin,” Jim Kan, a Massachusetts voter who chose Trump over Haley, told NBC News.
– Brian Schwartz
Donald Trump is projected by NBC News to win the Texas Republican presidential primary.
There were 161 delegates at stake in the GOP primary.
The former president Trump has twice won Texas in the national presidential election.
In 2016, when he won the White House, Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 52.5% to 43.5% in Texas.
Four years later, Trump bested President Joe Biden by 52.1% to 46.5%.
– Dan Mangan
President Joe Biden will win the Democratic primary in Texas, NBC News projects.
There were 244 delegates at stake in the Democratic primary
Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic presidential nominee to win in Texas, doing so in 1976 when he was elected to the White House.
– Dan Mangan
Rep. Jeff Jackson will win North Carolina’s Democratic primary in the attorney general’s race, NBC News projects.
In November, Jackson will face off against Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican hardliner, who won the GOP attorney general primary on Tuesday after being the only Republican contender in the field.
Jackson threw his hat in the ring after North Carolina redrew its congressional map, which effectively turned his purple district red. Attorney Tim Dunn and Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry were also in the Democratic field.
— Rebecca Picciotto
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and former Republican President Donald Trump are projected by NBC News to win their respective political parties’ primaries in Arkansas.
There were 31 delegates at stake in the Democratic primary.
There were 40 delegates in the Republican primary.
Former President Bill Clinton, who had served as governor of Arkansas, is the last Democrat to have won the state in the national presidential election. Clinton won his home state in both the 1992 and 1996 presidential contests.
Arkansas has six votes in the Electoral College.
– Dan Mangan
Biden will win Alabama’s Democratic presidential primary, NBC News projects, defeating Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, his only challenger on the ballot.
With his win, the president inches closer to the 1,968 Democratic delegates needed to seal the nomination by picking up a majority of Alabama’s 52 delegates.
Biden lost the state to Trump by a large margin in the 2020 presidential race.
—Chelsey Cox
Donald Trump will win Alabama’s Republican presidential primary, NBC News projects — a state he won over Biden by 62% vs. 32.2% in the 2020 election
His victory over former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who won the primary in Washington, D.C. this weekend, places him a step closer to clinching the GOP nomination.
Alabama has 50 Republican delegates. GOP candidates need to secure 1,215 delegates to win the nomination.
—Chelsey Cox
Donald Trump has won the Maine Republican primary, NBC News projects.
– Brian Schwartz
With 31% of the vote tallied, the Vermont Republican presidential primary showed a virtual tie between former President Donald Trump and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, NBC News projected.
Polls closed at 7 p.m. ET. More than 90 minutes later, Haley had garnered 48.3% of the counted vote, while Trump had 48.2%, according to NBC.
The vote is still coming in.
There are 17 delegates available to the GOP candidates in Vermont.
Trump is the overwhelming favorite to win the overall GOP presidential nomination. Haley has vowed to remain in the race so long as she remains “competitive.”
— Kevin Breuninger
President Joe Biden has won Maine’s Democratic primary, getting one step closer to clinching his party’s nomination for the second time, NBC News projects.
The win gives Biden another resounding victory over Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., his only primary opponent running in the state.
Local polling showed that Biden was the clear favorite in the primary.
– Brian Schwartz
Donald Trump will win Oklahoma’s Republican primary, NBC News projects.
Trump has a successful track record in the red state, having secured 65% of the electorate in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections.
Gov. Kevin Stitt initially endorsed Trump’s former opponent Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the race in January. Stitt has since kissed the Trump ring and cast his Super Tuesday vote for the twice-impeached former president. For that matter, DeSantis has also endorsed Trump.
— Rebecca Picciotto
Donald Trump will be hosting a party this evening at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, as results come in for Super Tuesday.
Trump’s ballroom is filling up with friends, close advisers and fans, including Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump campaign senior advisor Chris LaCivita and Trump rapper Forgiato Blow.
The crowd loudly cheered when Fox News graphics showed Trump winning Republican primaries in Virginia and North Carolina.
Donald Trump will win Tennessee’s Republican primary, NBC News projects.
The former president’s victory further cemented his far-and-away lead ahead of his remaining GOP challenger Nikki Haley.
Tennessee’s leaning for November is far from a cliff-hanger. The state has voted red in every general election since 2000. Biden lost the state to Trump by 20 points in 2020.
— Rebecca Picciotto
President Joe Biden has won the Massachusetts Democratic primary, NBC News projects.
The win gives Biden another resounding victory and gets him closer to clinching his party’s nomination.
Biden has so far dominated the 2024 primary season, winning all of the early contests.
– Brian Schwartz
Biden will win Tennessee’s Democratic primary, NBC News projects.
The president’s November chances in the Republican-voting state are still slim.
In 2020, he lost Tennessee by a more than 20-point margin to Donald Trump, who has already secured endorsements from the state’s Republican senators this election season.
Despite the tough odds, Democratic State Rep. Justin Jones, in a message of optimism on Tuesday, urged the Biden campaign not to give up on Tennessee: “It’s important that we don’t discount southern states.”
— Rebecca Picciotto
Biden will win Oklahoma’s Democratic primary, NBC News projects.
Oklahoma is a deep red state with minimal potential for Biden in November. In 2020, he lost the Sooner State to Donald Trump by a margin of over 30 points.
— Rebecca Picciotto
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein will win the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, NBC News projects.
Stein has the endorsement of outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and has been leading the Democratic field so far.
North Carolina’s governor’s race is a bellwether in a battleground state and a measure of the Democratic party’s potential in the state, as Biden looks to flip it after thinly losing it to Trump in 2020.
— Rebecca Picciotto
Polls have closed in Massachusetts, Alabama, Oklahoma, Maine and Tennessee — but the presidential primary races there are all too early to call, NBC News projects.
— Kevin Breuninger
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will win North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial primary, NBC News projects.
Robinson has been the GOP frontrunner in the race against former prosecutor Bill Graham and State Treasurer Dale Folwell. Robinson secured the endorsement of Donald Trump on Saturday.
North Carolina has one of the highest-profile gubernatorial races this election season, as eyes watch for whether the GOP will be able in turning the outgoing Democratic governor’s office red.
— Rebecca Picciotto
President Joe Biden is projected by NBC News to win the Democratic primary in Vermont,
Joe Snell, a Democrat, voted for Biden in Montpelier, where he dismissed any concerns about Biden’s age, 81.
“I think he’s brilliant,” said Snell. “I know that many people think he’s too old. I’m 75. So I think that’s a pretty darn good age.”
Vermont has an open primary system, meaning that voters can cast ballots in the party primary of their choice, without regard to their personal political affiliation.
The state has 3 votes in the Electoral College, the body that chooses the president after the national popular election in November.
– Dan Mangan
President Joe Biden will win the North Carolina Democratic primary, NBC News projects.
Biden was the only Democrat on the ballot in the Tar Heel State’s primary, where 116 delegates are up for grabs.
He now faces the more difficult task of securing the battleground state’s support in the general election.
An NBC News exit poll found that 60% of North Carolina’s GOP voters did not think Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.
Biden narrowly lost North Carolina to Donald Trump in 2020. Republicans have won the state in every presidential election since 2008, when then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama defeated GOP rival John McCain.
— Rebecca Picciotto
Donald Trump will win North Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, NBC News projects.
Trump defeated Nikki Haley in the GOP contest, where 74 delegates are up for grabs.
Trump in 2016 beat then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the Tar Heel State by nearly 4 points, and eked out another win in 2020 against President Joe Biden, albeit by a narrower margin.
Democrats have signaled plans to target North Carolina in the presidential general election.
— Rebecca Picciotto
Donald Trump will win the Vermont Republican primary, defeating former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, NBC News projects.
Vermont voters last voted for a Republican in a national presidential election in 1988, when George H.W. Bush was the party’s nominee.
The state is the second smallest in the nation by population. It has three votes in the Electoral College, the body that chooses the president after the popular election in November.
– Dan Mangan
Former president Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Virginia, NBC News projects.
The Virginia primary there is open, meaning that anyone can vote in either party’s primary, regardless of his or her registration.
Exit polls across the commonwealth revealed a pessimistic electorate that overwhelmingly feels the U.S. economy is doing poorly.
Just 24% of Republican primary voters in an exit poll said that the economy was in “Excellent” or “Good” shape, while 75% of respondents described the economy as “Not so good,” or “Poor.”
One of the more surprising results of that exit polling was that President Joe Biden enjoyed a 21% approval rating among Republican primary voters in Virginia. That is a relatively high number given the fact that primary voters tend to be among their political party’s most partisan members.
Overall, election outcomes in Virginia have been steadily shifting to the left over the past decade.
But the results of the commonwealth’s 2021 governor’s race cast doubt on whether the Old Dominion has gone entirely blue.
Republican Glenn Youngkin was elected governor, and he has implemented a conservative policy agenda since he was sworn in.
– Christina Wilkie
President Joe Biden will win the Democratic primary in Virginia, NBC News projects. The state is crucial to the incumbent’s path to reelection.
Virginia is represented by two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. But in 2021, the state’s voters elected a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, as governor.
Youngkin’s win recalibrated the political balance in a state that has been trending increasingly Democratic in recent election cycles.
— Christina Wilkie
Over half of Republican primary voters in North Carolina say they do not think President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election over Donald Trump, according to an NBC News exit poll.
Just 34% of respondents said they thought the Democratic president had won the election fairly.
Trump has spent the past four years stoking false conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him. His efforts have produced a deep distrust in the integrity of U.S. elections among many Republican voters.
– Brian Schwartz
President Joe Biden’s political operation says it had a record grassroots fundraising haul in February.
“This Super Tuesday, the split screen between our campaign and Donald Trump’s operation (if you can call it that!) couldn’t be more stark: President Biden continues to see record-breaking grassroots enthusiasm around a historic and winning agenda, while Donald Trump is poised to enter the general election broke, saddled by his unwavering support for the extremism Americans repeatedly reject at the ballot box – undermining our democracy, tax giveaways to the rich, and a national abortion ban,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty said in a statement.
CNBC asked the campaign for the exact numbers of this fundraising, but they did not reply to questions.
— Brian Schwartz
President Joe Biden is projected by NBC News to win the Democratic caucuses in Iowa.
Biden’s projected win is his first projected victory in Super Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses.
— Dan Mangan
More than double the number of Republicans turned out to vote as Democrats in Fairfax County, Virginia, a county that is currently represented by an all-blue delegation.
Fairfax County Votes, the official election tracker for the area, reported just before 4 p.m. ET on social media that the Democratic primary has seen 2.7% turnout versus the Republican primary’s 5.7%. Virginia’s polls close at 7 p.m. ET.
Though the party nominees of the 2024 race are nearly a foregone conclusion, Super Tuesday is an important test for unknown variables such as voter turnout, which can be read as an indicator of voter enthusiasm and could be a deciding factor in a Biden-Trump rematch.
— Rebecca Picciotto
Republican primary voters in California said the economy is the most important issue for their vote, NBC News exit poll results showed.
That top issue, selected by a 43% plurality, was followed by immigration, which garnered 39%, in the exit poll.
The vast majority of those GOP voters, 78%, also said they thought Donald Trump would handle the economy better as president than Nikki Haley.
— Kevin Breuninger
Republicans in Utah will select their choice for the party’s nominee via caucus, while Democrats there are holding a traditional primary to choose their favorite candidate.
Republicans will gather at more than 2,300 meetings in precincts across the states to make their pick starting at 9 p.m. ET.
Democrats are voting during the day, with polls closing at 11 p.m. ET.
There are more than 890,000 registered Republicans in Utah, compared to fewer than 230,000 registered Democrats.
— Dan Mangan
“Anything’s better than Trump or Haley,” Denver voter Melissa Magalif told NBC News, before admitting she’s “not Biden’s biggest fan by any means.”
“I have been personally impacted by the policies that Trump made when he was president: immigration policies, Muslim ban, his Covid-era policies, and having been personally impacted by those things in a negative way, I just have to go with my gut on this one,” Magalif told reporter Jillian Frankel about submitting her mail-in ballot for Biden.
But, she added, the Biden administration will have a lot to answer for concerning its approach to the Israel-Hamas War. Magalif said she is a member of the Jewish-Israeli community and identifies as LGBT.
“That is kind of what scares me with this election is that because of how they’ve handled this situation, specifically, and how it’s so fresh in everybody’s minds, why it could end up going back to Trump,” she said. “So I think if they do win, they’re gonna have [to rebuild] the trust of the American people.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday called for an immediate six-week cease-fire between Israel and Hamas as part of a deal to release hostages.
— Chelsey Cox
Robert Kennedy Jr. is not on presidential primary ballots Tuesday due to his status as an independent candidate, but he still touted himself as an alternative to President Joe Biden and Donald Trump as voters went to the polls.
Kennedy retweeted an image summarizing a recent Fox News poll leading Biden and Trump by several percentage points among independent voters nationally.
“It’s clear Americans want to break free from the two-party system. Let’s unite around our shared values and get down to business,” Kennedy wrote in that X post. “Our elected officials spend more time fighting across the aisle than actually improving the lives of their constituents.”
Kennedy, who is a vaccine skeptic, later replied to an X post about Mandy Cohen, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announcing that an updated Covid-19 vaccine is expected to become available next fall.
“Because the first nine shots didn’t protect you,” Kennedy wrote.
— Dan Mangan
Billionaire Mark Cuban called Donald Trump a “snake oil salesperson” as he praised President Joe Biden’s reelection bid.
“I don’t want a snake oil salesperson as President,” Cuban told the news site Axios via email. “I’m voting for Biden/Harris over Trump all day every day.”
Cuban told Axios that Trump’s voters “are happy with their snake oil whether it works or not.”
He said he would support Biden even if the incumbent president were on his deathbed.
“If they were having his last wake, and it was him versus Trump, and he was being given last rites, I would still vote for Joe Biden,” Cuban said.
Cuban, who is now a minority owner in the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks, was at the White House on Monday for a meeting about prescription drug costs. His two-year-old company Cost Plus Drug sells generic prescription drugs online.
— Dan Mangan
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has been quietly trying to recruit some of Nikki Haley’s wealthiest supporters to come over to their side, according to a person who recently heard from Trump’s campaign.
One of the asks to a top Haley financier occurred as recently as Monday, the eve of Super Tuesday, the person said. Some of the Trump camp’s charm offensive has been directed at her Wall Street donors, the person added.
Trump has beaten Haley in all but one of the primary contests so far, and he is expected to dominate the field on Super Tuesday, when more than 800 delegates are up for grabs.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
— Brian Schwartz
First Lady Jill Biden is taking a more active role on the campaign trail as her husband, President Joe Biden, seeks another term in office.
But Melania Trump, wife of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, appears to be keeping clear of the spotlight.
The former first lady has been almost completely absent from Trump’s latest presidential campaign, leaving him on his own as he gears up for a rematch with Biden. She has also declined to accompany her husband to his many court appearances as he fights 91 criminal charges and multiple high-profile civil penalties.
Trump said last fall that his wife will join him “pretty soon.” But that hasn’t happened in the runup to Super Tuesday.
Jill Biden, meanwhile, looks to be taking a more prominent role in the Democratic incumbent’s reelection bid.
In a speech in Atlanta on Friday, she lashed out at Trump over his treatment of women and stance on key women’s issues, including abortion rights.
“How far will he go? When will he stop? You know the answer: He won’t,” she said of Trump. The appearance was the first lady’s first stop on a three-day, four-state swing of key electoral battlegrounds.
A spokesperson for Melania Trump did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
— Kevin Breuninger
With North Carolina’s Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein pursuing a gubernatorial bid, two lawmakers on Capitol Hill are looking to occupy his current office.
Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican hardliner, is the sole Republican candidate in the state’s attorney general race. He leaves behind a seat in a deep-red district that has sparked a GOP race to succeed him, featuring pastor Mark Harris who led a failed congressional run in 2018.
Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson is competing on the Democratic side, in part due to the state’s redrawn congressional map, which effectively turned his purple district red. Attorney Tim Dunn and Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry are also in the Democratic running.
If none of the candidates in the North Carolina primaries secure a 30% majority or higher, the top two will head to a runoff on May 14.
— Rebecca Picciotto
This Super Tuesday, the top presidential candidates are working from home.
Donald Trump played golf Tuesday morning at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, a few minutes’ drive from his Mar-a-Lago resort home, a source told NBC News.
Trump’s campaign said the former president will deliver a speech at Mar-a-Lago in the evening.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, returned to the White House on Tuesday morning after spending the weekend at Camp David.
He is slated to convene a White House council meeting in the afternoon to announce new actions to fight “corporate rip-offs.”
Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley told CNN on Friday that she will be in her home state of South Carolina on Tuesday night, even though the state already held its primary election, which she lost to Trump.
— Kevin Breuninger
A group of political action committees financed by the cryptocurrency industry spent just more than $13 million on congressional primary contests taking place on Super Tuesday, according to data from AdImpact.
The data shows that Fairshake, one of three crypto-backed PACs, has spent $9.5 million on television, radio and digital advertisements against Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., who is running for California’s open Senate seat in a massive primary fight against Democratic front-runner Rep. Adam Schiff.
Protect Progress, another crypto-supported committee, spent $1.7 million in support of Shomari Figures, a Democrat running in a primary campaign for Alabama’s 2nd congressional district.
Defend American Jobs spent more than $1 million backing two Republicans running for House seats in North Carolina.
— Brian Schwartz
Pop superstar Taylor Swift used her hugely popular Instagram account to urge followers to vote in the presidential primaries in her home state of Tennessee and elsewhere.
“I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent YOU into power,” Swift wrote in an Instagram Story post. “If you haven’t already, make a plan to vote today.”
Swift then directed her 282 million followers to the link Vote.org to find information about their polling locations.
The singer backed President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Supporters of former President Donald Trump started criticizing Swift months ago, in the expectation that she would endorse Biden again.
Before the Super Bowl game in February, Swift was briefly the subject of a bizarre right-wing conspiracy that imagined that her romance with Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce was a stunt designed to help Biden’s reelection bid.
— Dan Mangan
Below is an alphabetical list of the states where Americans are casting ballots today.
The following states are holding both Democratic and Republican primaries:
In Utah, Democrats are holding a primary while Republicans are holding a caucus.
In Alaska, Republicans will caucus while Democrats are holding their primary on April 6.
Though Republicans already settled Iowa in the first primary of the season, Democratic ballots have been rolling in since January and are due to be released Tuesday.
— Rebecca Picciotto
The Colorado primary could offer Nikki Haley a rare opportunity to add to her delegate count. Former president Donald Trump is currently leading with 276 Republican delegates to Haley’s 43.
The state’s 37 delegates are awarded proportionally to candidates who win at least 20% of the vote. According to NBC News, Haley’s worst case scenario would still likely be a pickup of 10 delegates.
Haley typically performs better than Trump among Independents and center-right Republicans, according to Republican strategist Susan Del Percio. A third of the total votes cast so far in the Colorado presidential primary came from voters who were unaffiliated with either party, Axios reports.
Haley also draws outsize support from affluent, college-educated Republicans. Nearly half of Colorado’s population age 25 and older, 43.7%, have a Bachelor’s degree or higher, per the U.S. Census.
— Chelsey Cox
The biggest primary race to watch in the nation’s most populous state isn’t the one for president.
A crush of candidates are vying for the powerful Senate seat formerly held for two decades by Dianne Feinstein, who died in September. Sen. Laphonza Butler, whom Gov. Gavin Newsom picked to temporarily fill the vacancy, has opted not to run to keep the seat.
The Senate primary in California, which consistently votes blue in statewide contests, has largely looked like a three-way race between Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.
Schiff, who gained national prominence for his leading role in the first impeachment of then-President Donald Trump, has led the pack in ad spending and polling.
But Steve Garvey, a Republican former pro baseball player, has seen a late surge in the polls, even though his campaign has placed no TV ads.
That’s likely because the majority of Schiff’s broadcasts mention Garvey, while none mention Porter.
It’s a strategy that could pay off massively. California has an open primary, meaning voters can select any party’s candidate, and only the top two candidates will proceed to the general election.
If Schiff winds up competing against Garvey in the general, rather than Porter or Lee, he may have a better shot at winning in California, which hasn’t had a Republican senator since 1992.
— Kevin Breuninger
North Carolina’s primaries feature several competitive down-ballot races, including a closely watched gubernatorial primary to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, which could act as a bellwether of the battleground state’s leaning in November.
Gov. Cooper endorsed the state’s Attorney General Josh Stein to be his successor. But before Stein officially secures the incumbent party’s nomination, he will have to clear a crowded Democratic field. Stein is up against four opponents including former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Morgan.
If he is the Democratic nominee, Stein could face a November matchup against Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is leading the GOP pool so far and has Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Joe Biden is looking to flip North Carolina after Donald Trump narrowly won the state by just over one percent in the 2020 general election. If Republicans are able to turn Gov. Cooper’s seat red, it could signal how the swing state’s electorate is thinking about their options at the top of the ticket.
— Rebecca Picciotto
Super Tuesday primary voting began bright and as early as 6 a.m. ET in Vermont, with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump looking to cement their leads over their respective remaining intraparty opponents.
In the Republican primary, 17 delegates are up for grabs, while in the Democratic contest, there are 16 delegates at stake. Polls will close at 7 p.m. ET.
Vermont has an open primary system. Voters can choose in which party primary to vote, regardless of their personal political affiliation.
Vermont, which is the second-smallest state by population, will award just three votes in the Electoral College after the presidential election in November.
— Dan Mangan
The battle for California’s coveted open Senate seat is still a long way from the general election, but the contest is already the state’s most expensive Senate race of all time, by far.
Spending on the Golden State Senate race has topped $65.3 million, AdImpact reported on Feb. 29.
That’s 242% more spending than the last three California Senate races combined, according to AdImpact.
The difference underscores just how competitive the race for late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat has been compared to other elections in the reliably blue state.
— Kevin Breuninger
