Joe Biden and Donald Trump are expected to win easily on Super Tuesday. In early results, Biden won Iowa via mail-in ballots, and after polls closed in Vermont, Virginia, North Carolina, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Tennessee won. Trump also won Republican primaries in North Carolina, Maine, Oklahoma and Virginia.
The United States has not experienced such a competitive primary season since political primaries began dominating the nominating process in the 1970s. Neither the current president nor the former president has been nominated by their respective parties, but both could be nominated within the next two weeks.
Biden wins big, but there are warning signs
Biden needs 1,968 delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination. Entering Super Tuesday, he had won 206 seats. Today’s primaries and caucuses added another 1,420 seats. Assuming Biden continues to sweep the primaries, he could be nominated on the first ballot as early as March 19, with results announced in Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.
Democratic candidates can win delegates in congressional districts with 15% or more of the vote. California’s 424 Democratic representatives were the richest representatives of the night. California’s electoral vote count is notoriously slow, and final results won’t be known until Wednesday morning, but this is Williamson’s best chance to win more delegates.
Write-in votes for candidates typically take days to be tallied, but observers have been keeping a close eye on “not committed” or “none of the above” protest votes to express disapproval of the Biden administration’s stance on Israel-Hamas Dissatisfaction with war policy. The campaign has made more progress after a strong showing in Michigan last week.
Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin told reporters today that if enough voters choose “no preference,” a representative may be assigned to support that option.
Trump moves on, but divisions within party clear
Trump entered Super Tuesday with 273 delegates and needed 1,215 to win the nomination outright at the Republican National Convention. Super Tuesday offered 865 delegates, but Nikki Haley’s continued campaign prevented Trump from receiving them all. According to tonight’s results, Trump could win the nomination as soon as March 19, including Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.
Trump won a final reprieve in Colorado, where the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that states cannot use the 14th Amendment to unilaterally kick presidential candidates off the ballot.
Haley won the District of Columbia primary on Sunday, becoming the first woman in history to win a Republican presidential primary. However, only about 2,000 people voted in the primary.
Prestigious state contest could bring more upsets
California voters have been watching the state’s tight race to fill the seat of the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. California sends the top two candidates in the primary to a runoff. Among the 27 contenders, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, who has long opposed Trump in Congress, is expected to top the list. Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter and Republican former baseball players Steven Garvey and Barbara Lee trail Schiff in polls.
Texas held state and federal legislative primaries on Tuesday, setting up a Republican showdown on state political issues for Texas voters.Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been on a revenge tour to punish lawmakers who voted to impeach him last year on corruption charges, has released a Long list of recognized challengers Incumbent.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan offered the biggest goal. Paxton, Trump and Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi have all endorsed David Covey in his primary challenge to Phelan, whose district has been flooded with bruised and well-funded attack ads.
Meanwhile, Democrats are looking for a challenger for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. The contenders are Democratic Representatives Colin Allred and Roland Gutierrez, who became a national gun control advocate after the Uvalde shooting.
Alabama voters will cast their ballots in the newly drawn 2nd Congressional District. The U.S. Supreme Court last year forced Alabama to redraw its congressional maps, declaring them racially gerrymandered and illegally disempowering black voters. As a result, two white Republican congressmen – Jerry Carr and Barry Moore – faced off against each other for a seat after redistricting.
Notably, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker, who last month issued a ruling with religious overtones on the personhood of frozen embryos, was not present for the vote tonight. Alabama bars judges over 70 from running for re-election; his term ends in 2025.
In North Carolina, the Republican state Legislature redrawn congressional maps last year after winning a majority on the state Supreme Court. As a result, the current delegation of 14 members of Congress could go from a 7-7 split to a 10-4 Republican majority. Five representatives chose to leave Congress and abandon their bids in the redistricted districts: Democratic Representatives Jeff Jackson, Kathy Manning and Willie Nickell, and Republican Representatives Dan Bishop and Patrick McHenry.
Potentially flippable seats have attracted fierce primaries, particularly in the 13th Congressional District, which is now drawn in a horseshoe shape surrounding suburban Raleigh.
North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, located in the northeastern coastal region of the state, is historically Democratic and majority black. Lawmakers reworked it to make it more competitive for Republican candidates. Rep. Don Davis defeated 2022 Republican businesswoman and perennial candidate Sandy Smith by 4 percentage points. Smith drew a primary challenger this year.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson won the Republican gubernatorial nomination to succeed North Carolina’s term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Robinson, North Carolina’s first black lieutenant governor, has a history of sexist and inflammatory remarks, particularly about Jews. He describes the movie Black Panther As “created by an agnostic Jew and [a] Satanic Marxist”. He then went on to say that it was “created just to take the shekels out of Schwarz’s pocket”. Robinson described Covid-19 as a “globalist” plot to destroy Donald Trump.
In November, Robinson will face North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. The Democratic candidate would become North Carolina’s first Jewish governor.
