Super Tuesday highlights: Trump and Biden further solidify control of races; Haley wins Vermont but lags behind

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign, told NBC News that the former president’s list of potential vice presidential candidates has been “growing and getting longer” and said that Trump has been wowed by the number of “impressive prospects out there.”

But tonight’s results are a reminder that Trump’s list should really be narrowing. Trump has a clear weakness: reliably appealing to anybody who isn’t part of the MAGA base. Bafflingly, the part of his veep shortlist that he has described publicly is filled with vanquished MAGA ideologues, such as Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy. Sure, these politicians flatter Trump and would be pliant — willing to do what Mike Pence wasn’t during the attempted insurrection.

But the reason Trump snagged Pence in the first place was because of the former Indiana governor’s ability to compensate for his own vulnerabilities with the GOP establishment and evangelical voters. The smart thing for Trump to do if he wants to win is to woo his remaining rival — Haley — or someone like her.

Rachel Maddow speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

There is this idea when you study countries that used to be democracies, that slid out of democracies and became authoritarian instead, that the institutions cannot defend themselves. We have set up our institutions so that their defense against authoritarian rule and anti-democratic tactics is shame and transparency, and people knowing the information so they can react accordingly. But if that is all we’ve got, then our institutions will not defend our democracy. 

We’re in a situation right now where we can’t count on the existing structures to just do this on autopilot. There’s only one way out of this. You have to pick one. You have to pick Donald Trump or you have to pick Joe Biden. It means not only voting, but literally doing whatever you can to make one of those two candidates win. And if you’re not working for one of them, you are by default working for the other one.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

One of the more outlandish GOP conspiracy theories swirling around Biden’s re-election bid has been the claim that a mystery Democrat could swoop in and replace him at the last minute. 

To be clear, former President Barack Obama steadfastly supported his former vice president, and former first lady Michelle Obama has never shown any interest in attempting a dramatic intraparty coup.

Nevertheless, this theory has been pushed at various times by fringe MAGA characters like Roger Stone and, somewhat more incredibly, Sen. Ted Cruz. 

“So here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps the most likely and most dangerous,” the Texas Republican said on his podcast in September. “In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.”

In a statement sent to NBC News this week, Michelle Obama again stated the obvious.

“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” said Crystal Carson, director of communications for her office. “Mrs. Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign.”

Hopefully such speculation can finally be put to rest. But don’t count on it.

Stephanie Ruhle speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Haley has the money, so why leave the primary?

The question beyond “Where are Nikki Haley voters going to go?” is “Where are Nikki Haley donors going to go?” Because she has huge donors in her corner. And from my reporting, they’re not going anywhere. They are happy to give her money because she’s sort of this great hope for them, a George Bush Republican. 

When she’s out, so are they. And they will begrudgingly vote for Joe Biden, but they’re not going to give him a big check. Or they will, secretly and not admit it, vote for Donald Trump. But you’re not going to see them writing big checks.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

CNN’s Dana Bash asked Sen. Lindsey Graham about “warning signs” for Trump’s general election prospects — his struggle with moderates, independents and college graduates.

The South Carolina Republican replied by saying Trump could win by making it “a policy contest” and taking the spotlight off his “personality problem.” At first blush, this seems funny because it implies that Trump is capable of some kind of pivot toward being a policy wonk, which is ludicrous.

But I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. Trump does represent many clear positions with his record and his rhetoric — he favors autocratic concentration of power, extreme nativism, nationalism, plutocracy, militance and social conservatism. Trump’s personality is polarizing, but at the end of the day the source of his disapproval is the extreme vision of American life that he applies his personality to trying to usher into existence.

Trump’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t discuss policy. It’s that his policies are extreme.

Democratic candidate Marianne Williamson, who had suspended her campaign after pulling only 2% of the vote in the South Carolina primary, announced last week that she is back in the race. In a video posted on social media, she explained that she had dropped out “because I was losing the horse race, but something so much more important than the horse race is at stake here, and we must respond.” 

Williamson is still losing the horse race, of course, but perhaps the 3% she got in Michigan made it seem like she wasn’t as far behind as she thought. The message of her revival video focuses largely on domestic economic issues, such as medical debt and high rent. But as my MSNBC colleague Zeeshan Aleem pointed out when it looked like Williamson had closed up shop, she has always been an imperfect messenger for progressive economic policies. Her “mystical belief in the capacity of the individual mind to will a new reality into existence underpin[s] her political rhetoric,” he wrote, “in a way that undercut her interest in progressive policies.”

On a night when it’s becoming clearer than ever that an aspiring authoritarian is going to secure his party’s nomination, it’s nice to see one of his minions lose badly.

NBC News projects that Ryan Zink — a Texas man who filmed himself saying during the Jan. 6 insurrection, “We knocked down the gates! We’re storming the Capitol! You can’t stop us!” — has lost the GOP primary in Texas’ 19th Congressional District to incumbent Jodey Arrington. Zink was projected to finish in fourth place.

Zink was convicted of felony and misdemeanor charges tied to his breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. He pitched himself to voters as a “political prisoner” of the “D.C. gulag.”

Chris Hayes speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

The Biden campaign wants a forced choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They don’t talk about Nikki Haley; she doesn’t exist in their world. They sure as hell aren’t gonna talk about anyone else who might be floating around the ballots in various states. To Team Biden, the key to re-creating the majority coalition they put together in 2020 is a starkly binary race. That's why it has to be a forced choice between two men; The two men that we keep putting up on our screens tonight. That is their calculation.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who finished first in California’s U.S. Senate primary Tuesday, will face off against Republican Steve Garvey, a former Los Angeles Dodgers star, in the dramatic race to fill the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat. Feinstein served in the Senate for more than 30 years before passing away in September.

California has a top-two primary system, meaning the top two vote-getters overall advance to the general election, regardless of party. Garvey’s second-place finish eliminated Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee and Katie Porter from the runoff. Schiff’s first-place finish may speak to the power of his connections and his war chest. As my colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim noted earlier this evening, Schiff, the pick of most of California’s Democratic establishment, had raised $31 million, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group tracking money in politics. That’s far more than was raised by Porter, Lee or Garvey.

The Republican Party loves to demonize California Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the late Feinstein. But Schiff already has plenty of experience being targeted by Republicans. In June, the GOP-controlled U.S. House censured Schiff for leading the first impeachment inquiry into Trump. He may get the last laugh.

Haley has managed to score a primary victory tonight — she is projected to narrowly beat Trump in Vermont. In the run-up to the nominating contest, Haley won endorsements from the state’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, and a former Republican governor of the state, Jim Douglas.

Vermont is a tiny, deeply blue state with a track record of favoring moderate Republicans; the state was an unusual opportunity for Haley, and she seized it. It’s unclear at this point if she will secure enough of the vote to secure the state’s 17 delegates. But even if she does, it would do little to close her tremendous delegate gap between herself and Trump. The only other primary she has won was in Washington, D.C., which awarded her just 19 delegates.

Much like his kickoff speech in late 2022, Trump’s victory speech at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday was markedly lower in energy than the Trump of 2020, let alone the Trump of 2016. It contained the usual risible lies about immigrants, crime and other red meat for the right. And — typical for Trump, though less typical for most presidential hopefuls with a brief moment of national TV time — the arguments were ill-prepared and rarely coherent.

Most interestingly, Trump spent much of what was very much a general election speech — Haley barely rated a mention — on airbrushing his last time in office. He bragged about being a peaceful president, even though he nearly took us to war with Iran and expanded the post-9/11 drone war (with a resulting increase in casualties). He also claimed to have done a fantastic job fighting Covid, even though there were over 150,000 thousand preventable deaths on his watch.

Trump lying is no surprise. It is surprising, though, that Trump would want to raise his past record again, when evidence suggests his polls have been helped specifically because voters have forgotten parts of his tenure. Biden’s statement earlier tonight suggests Democrats would welcome a debate on how good a president Trump was.

Biden’s clean sweep of the Democratic primaries has come to an end — he was defeated in the U.S. territory of American Samoa by Jason Palmer.

Wait, Jason who?

The Associated Press describes Palmer as a “previously unknown candidate” who “appears to have campaigned in the territory.” According to his campaign website, Palmer is “an entrepreneur, impact investor, and philanthropist” who advocates for “conscious capitalism” and modernizing the U.S. government.  It seems Palmer may have made inroads through some retail politicking in the Pacific territory, which isn’t represented in the Electoral College but does get six delegates in the Democratic primaries. 

Congratulations to Mr. Palmer. He has outfoxed a mighty establishment foe. It’ll probably be the last time he ever does so.

Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty says she spoke with a Trump strategist on Tuesday who says the problem for Biden and his campaign team is that “There’s nothing they can say about Trump that voters don’t already know.”

One of my ironclad political beliefs is that Democrats should not take campaign strategy advice from Republicans. Yes, Trump’s base has stuck with him through the scandals, the indictments and the attempted insurrection. But it’s outrageous to say that Biden would be wasting his time pointing out Trump’s unfitness.

Biden should be unrelenting, highlighting how Trump was found liable for sexual abuse against E. Jean Carroll, the fraud that’s put him on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in New York, his racist remarks and his promise to be a dictator who builds detention camps.

Not surprisingly, Trump strategist’s suggestion also doesn’t track with what Democratic pollster Geoff Garin recently found while polling 400 voters each in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. According to The New Republic, when presented with a series of Trump’s anti-democratic statements, “Only 31 percent of respondents said they previously had heard a lot” about them.

Significantly, when they were told about him their negative opinion of Trump increased.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in California.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in California, securing all of the state’s 169 delegates.

See the latest results here.

As he racked up primary wins on Super Tuesday, one of Trump’s first messages to supporters was about revenge.

In a fundraising text sent around 8 p.m. ET, Trump wrote that the wins were part of a “total victory” and that “victory is our ultimate revenge.”

Revenge has been a theme of Trump’s campaign from the start. At CPAC last year, he promised attendees that “for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” In December, he shared the results of a poll on Truth Social that showed that voters associated him with the word “revenge.”

It’s not a metaphor, either, as Trump has said he might prosecute his political opponents if he becomes president again in retaliation for the criminal charges he’s facing.

The Biden campaign has highlighted Trump’s calls for revenge and his talk of being a “dictator” — a sign Team Biden thinks this is a weakness they can exploit in the general election. Haley also brought up similar Trump rhetoric in a recent appearance on NBC News' “Meet the Press.”

“When you go and you talk about revenge. When you go and you talk about, you know, vindication. … What does that mean?” she said.

NBC News projects that Haley has won the Republican presidential primary in Vermont.

See the latest results here.

Trump lost California by nearly 30 percentage points in 2020’s general election, but he should do well in the Golden State tonight.

Under a recent rules change, California Republicans will award all of the state’s 169 delegates — the most of any state — to Trump if he manages to get more than 50% of the primary vote. Recent polls show he’s likely to easily clear that bar.

Now a reliably blue state, California hasn’t backed a Republican presidential nominee in the general election since 1988, but the head of the state GOP pointed out that the state is still home to more Republicans than any other state.

“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice,” Biden said in a just-released written statement. “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?”

In the past four years, “we’ve made enormous progress,” the statement says in part. “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 Donald Trump returns to the White House, all of this progress is at risk. He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people.”

It’s quite likely that this statement is a preview of Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday. Among other things, it suggests Biden is leaning into the argument that Americans are largely better off than they were four years ago — a case the data certainly supports.

Jen Psaki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Tonight's down-ticket races are really interesting. In Texas, the District 23 House race features a Republican incumbent Tony Gonzales who has done the right thing, I’ll say, on guns, who supports gay marriage — and who was censured by his GOP colleagues in Texas. One of the people running against him, Julie Clark, lead the censure. So let’s see what happens there. If somebody from the right wins, that’s maybe a pickup opportunity for Democrats.

In California, the District 22 House race is a very interesting because it is a so-called "jungle primary." The top two advance, so it could be a Democrat and a Republican. Or it could be two Republicans. The Democrats have already picked a Democrat. They spent a lot of money there, and if they don’t get a Democrat on the ballot, that’s going to be a disappointment. But GOP incumbent David Valadao is vulnerable, so it's another potential pickup.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

Among the most highly watched Super Tuesday races is the Senate primary in California, where polls close in a little more than a half-hour.

More than two dozen candidates are running for the late Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat, but the main contenders are three Democratic members of Congress — Reps. Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter — and former Los Angeles Dodgers star Steve Garvey, a Republican. The two candidates who receive the most votes will run against each other in November.

The race is one of the most expensive in the state’s history. Schiff, who has been backed by most of California’s Democratic establishment, raised $31 million, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group tracking money in politics. That’s far more than has been raised by Porter, Lee or Garvey.

NBC News projects that Colin Allred has won the Democratic primary in Texas for the U.S. Senate, defeating Roland Gutierrez.

See the latest results here.

In recent years, Democrats have fallen in love with a series of long-shot candidates in red states who raised a bunch of small-donor money and then went on to lose, badly.

But few fit the formula as well as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the Texan who skateboarded into Democrats’ hearts before losing a Senate race, a Democratic presidential primary and then a governor’s race.

As the projected winner of the Democratic Senate primary in Texas, Rep. Colin Allred is now set to challenge Sen. Ted Cruz in November. But first he must defeat the ghost of Beto.

A former NFL linebacker, Allred seems to have internalized the playbook, aiming his campaign more at Texans than the national Democratic base (although he doesn’t mind their donations), carefully staking out moderate positions and avoiding any controversial statements that might turn off Republican voters.

But Texas is an expensive state to run in, and Allred will need to improve his name recognition to challenge Cruz effectively. O’Rourke ran flawed campaigns, but he knew how to get attention. If Allred can figure out how to get his name out without the drawbacks, he might have a shot.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Utah.

See the latest results here.

Super Tuesday is a perfect time to point out that some states make it too difficult for their residents to cast their ballots. Alabama, Mississippi and New Hampshire are such examples because they, as the National Conference of State Legislatures points out, don’t allow in-person early voting. (The NCSL makes a distinction between absentee voting and early in-person voting.)

Today, though, a Missisippi Senate committee advanced a measure that would give state residents 15 days, including the Saturday before a Tuesday election to cast their ballots — no questions asked.

The “no questions asked” part is important. As Mississippi Today explains:

Here’s hoping the committee vote is the first step toward making it easier for Mississippians to participate in elections. And let’s hope Alabama and New Hampshire, the other two holdouts, change their rules as well.

One more incumbent will be returning to Congress next year, as NBC News projects Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee will win the Democratic primary in Texas’ 18th Congressional District. Jackson Lee dispatched Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member and former Jackson Lee intern. That latter title is particularly notable since Jackson Lee’s run for mayor of Houston last year ended in lopsided defeat after a recording leaked of Jackson Lee berating a member of her staff. Now, though, Jackson Lee is all but assured of her fourth decade in Congress.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Minnesota, securing all of the state’s 16 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Minnesota, securing all of the state’s 56 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Colorado, securing all of the state’s 37 delegates.

See the latest results here.

Biden was there the last time that a Democratic presidential candidate won in North Carolina in 2008, and he may be tempted to try for a repeat.

The Tar Heel State has been the most tantalizing prospect for Democrats in recent presidential elections. After Obama’s surprise win in his first campaign, Democrats saw it as potentially following the red-to-purple trajectory of neighboring Virginia. 

But Democratic presidential nominees fell short there in 2012, 2016 and 2020, even as states like Arizona and Georgia became real battlegrounds.

Still, in 2020 Biden only lost the state by 1.4 percentage points, his narrowest loss, and the Biden campaign included North Carolina on a list of targets in a 2024 strategy memo. Polls generally show Trump ahead in the state, but a recent Moody’s Analytics report had Trump and Biden essentially tied, largely due to the strength of the state economy.

Democrats think a controversial new abortion law may also be motivating some voters this year, as well as a high-profile (and Trumpy) Republican governor nominee, and the continued influx of voters moving from blue states.

It’s still too early to tell if the Biden campaign will really make a play for North Carolina instead of focusing on repeating its success in Arizona and Georgia. But expanding the number of states he’s contesting would keep Trump busy.

There’s a yawning chasm between Republican primary voters in Virginia who favored Trump or Haley on a critical question: whether Biden won the 2020 election legitimately.

Among Haley voters, 87% answered yes, while 4% answered no. Among Trump voters, 15% answered affirmatively, and 76% said no. As NBC News’ Allan Smith notes, “This continues to be one of the biggest divides in exit polling in each state surveyed so far.” 

The massive difference between Trump and Haley supporters on this question suggests it’s a useful proxy for understanding what motivates Haley versus Trump voters, and what shapes their worldview. What keeps Haley voters in her camp seems to be greater trust in our democratic institutions and resistance to MAGA misinformation and disinformation. Haley represents a more classically conservative camp, whereas Trump’s crowd is more inclined to tear down mainstream institutional life altogether.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Colorado, securing all of the state’s 54 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Massachusetts, securing all of the state’s 40 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Ted Cruz has won the Republican primary in Texas for the U.S. Senate, defeating Holland Gibson.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Texas.

See the latest results here.

Lawrence O’Donnell speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

When it comes to the Democrats voting “uncommitted,” like we saw in Michigan, it’s true that the Democratic Party and Democratic presidents have a unique problem, which is the ability to disappoint their voters more quickly than Republicans do. And that’s because of the activist government that Democratic presidents pursue. They are trying to do more. They will talk to you about forgiving your student loans, and then end up forgiving student loans — but not all of them, because of the complexities of rules. 

And so there’s a possibility of a greater sense of dissatisfaction generally with Democratic presidents. Meanwhile, Republican voters are much more disciplined about this, and you cannot disappoint them just by failing them on one issue. For example, building a wall on the southern border. What if you don’t? What if you don’t at all? “It’s OK. It’s OK we’re with you.” 

If you promise something as big as that on the Democrat side and you don’t do it, there’s this sense of failure. The uncommitted vote is simply the most polite possible way you can say to a Democratic president in a presidential primary, “I’m not happy with you.”

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Texas.

See the latest results here.

Trump’s recent claim that T-shirts with his mug shot have been a big hit among “the Black population” didn’t go over well with basketball Hall of Famer and famous Black guy Charles Barkley. On a recent appearance on the CNN’s “King Charles” show, co-host Gayle King asked Barkley what he thought when he heard Trump’s racist remark.

“First of all, I’m just going to say this,” Barkley said. “If I see a Black person walking around with Trump mug shot, I’m gonna punch him in the face.”

When King said he couldn’t really mean that, Barkley responded: “Oh, I mean that sincerely.”

Barkley is correct when he called Trump’s remark “an insult to all Black people.” But, like King, I feel obligated to discourage people from using Barkley’s words as a guide. And to remind people that one of his most famous remarks ever was “I am not a role model.”

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Alabama, securing all of the state’s 29 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Alabama, securing all of the state’s 38 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Maine, securing all of the state’s 20 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Arkansas.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Arkansas, securing all of the state’s 27 delegates.

See the latest results here.

One increasingly common difficulty facing pollsters is respondents who treat questions as referenda on their candidate or political party. Take, for example, this question from NBC News’ exit poll of North Carolina Republicans:

Now, as my colleague Jarvis DeBerry noted earlier, it hasn’t been hard for media to find misogynistic anti-Haley voters, so sexism could easily explain some of the nearly 20 percent gap. But it beggars belief to argue that the 52-year-old Haley is less physically and mentally fit than the 77-year-old Trump — unless, of course, many of these respondents aren’t answering this based on actuarial tables, but on whether they like or dislike the candidates.

This is an increasing problem that threatens to render important metrics useless. Take consumer sentiment: Reporters and pundits have spilled gallons of proverbial ink wondering why, until recently, Americans remained down on the economy even as consumer behavior suggested a much rosier picture. But a large chunk of that gap lay in Republicans answering the question not based on their own economic situation, but on who occupied the White House. (Democrats have also exhibited similar behavior, though on a markedly smaller scale.) Unless polarization finally slackens, especially on the Republican side, it’s hard to see this problem fading away.

It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on why Trump’s projected victory in Virginia is such a big deal. 

It was obvious that Haley had no realistic shot of coming out of Super Tuesday looking like an actual contender. But Virginia was one of the rare potential bright spots on the map for her. Given Virginia’s proximity to Washington, D.C. — the only nominating contest that Haley has so far won in 2024 — and its outsized number of moderate, highly educated Republicans, the state represented one of Haley’s best shots at blocking a Trump sweep. A win there would also have strengthened her argument that she’s a strong general election candidate. My NBC colleagues named Virginia as one of the few places that Haley could have narrowly bested Trump in a best-case scenario. That scenario didn’t happen. And Haley’s only clear value proposition has weakened even further.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Maine.

See the latest results here.

For some time now, the Trump campaign has had a money problem. Despite largely defeating his rivals at the polls in January, he was outraised by Haley, and his campaign is spending millions of dollars on legal fees.

Enter another man with vast experience in losing millions: Elon Musk. The New York Times reports that on Sunday, one day before losing the title of “richest man on earth,” Musk and “a few wealthy Republican donors” met with Trump as the former president seeks new sources of financing for the general election. Though Musk has disagreed with Trump in the past, he has become increasingly critical of immigration in recent years, and has falsely accused Democrats of “ushering in vast numbers of illegals” to vote in elections. His social media site X has become increasingly a favorite of the far right, even as its value has tanked by billions of dollars. The alliance of one of the world’s richest men and an aspiring authoritarian would make for a natural and chilling fit.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Tennessee.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Massachusetts, securing all of the state’s 70 delegates.

See the latest results here.

Lawrence O'Donnell speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Every party always worries if there’s a primary that’s contentious at all, and this one is contentious enough. GOP voters are being asked in exit polls if they will vote for the Republican nominee in November, no matter who it is. And it looks like a not-insignificant percentage are saying no.

As Steve Kornacki has pointed out, that question cuts against both possible Republican nominees. But you have to bet at this point that Republican primary voters, who are way more informed than your average Republican voter, know that there’s only one possibility for the nominee. There is not a theoretical possibility that Nikki Haley will be the nominee when you’re asking that question today, leaving a polling place today.

So, the likelihood is that this is a pretty negative indicator for Trump in November. Because remember, if you just slice off 10,000 votes in this state, and 10,000 votes in that state, suddenly you could be in trouble.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Tennessee, securing all of the state’s 46 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Oklahoma.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Oklahoma.

See the latest results here.

Trump endorsed North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson for governor over the weekend, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

But while King sought to bring people together, Robinson is more known for inflammatory comments about women, Muslims, Jewish people and members of the LGBTQ community.

As Robinson appears to have secured the Republican gubernatorial nomination, those comments are likely to come back to haunt him in the general election.

In posts on Facebook, Robinson referred to former First Lady Michelle Obama as a man and said she speaks “ghetto,” said the movie “Black Panther” was “created by an agnostic Jew” to “pull the shekels” from Black moviegoers’ pockets, said people who support “this mass delusion called transgenderism” are trying “to glorify Satan,” minimized the Holocaust, criticized actresses wearing “see thru, ultra tight, breast baring whore dresses,” shared a quote on racial pride attributed to Adolf Hitler and repeatedly characterized Muslims as terrorists, among other things.

Robinson has distanced himself from some of the posts, apologizing for “the wording, not necessarily for the content.”

NBC News projects that Josh Stein has won North Carolina’s Democratic primary for governor, defeating Mike Morgan.

See the latest results here.

Intrepid MSNBC and NBC News correspondent Ali Vitali provided quite the analogy just now standing outside Haley’s campaign headquarters. Despite increasingly long odds, Vitali said that the “mood” of Haley staffers currently was reportedly “jubilant; it almost gives the sense of dancing on the deck of the Titanic.”

Yes, Haley’s campaign is a hopeless cause. One might argue that every Republican who challenged the former president this go ’round was embarking on a similarly hopeless endeavor. But there is something admirable about knowing you’re going to lose and still refusing to succumb to despair. Somebody needed to challenge Trump.

Of course, Republicans also had a chance to challenge Trump in a more united way eight years ago — that is, before he became such an immovable force.

Early exit polls indicate that the top issue for Republican primary voters in Virginia is immigration, followed by the economy. That tracks with national polling and underscores how much Trump and the right-wing media ecosystem have been hammering home immigration in recent months — and how the debate about the strength of the economy has cooled off.

Among those Republican primary voters, 64% trust Trump more on border security, while 33% trust Haley more. That’s notable: Even in a purple state with a sizable amount of more educated and more moderate Republicans, Trump’s hard-right immigration policies are considered widely acceptable.

Haley and her aligned groups have spent nearly $100 million on the nominating contest, and so far they have very little to show for it, NPR reports. That $96 million — which represents about a third of the money spent by candidates on the GOP race — is about a third more than Trump has spent. But her 43 delegates are a little more than 15% of what Trump has banked to date. (A $96 million campaign that has won 43 delegates means Haley and her groups have spent more than $2.2 million per delegate.)

CNBC reports, however, that Haley’s donors have been sticking with her as a gesture of defiance to Trump’s dominance. One anonymous donor explained, “It’s not that I think she has a decent chance of winning, but I think she’s the most effective counterforce to Trump’s talking points.” Not among those sticking with her: Americans for Prosperity Action, the organization supported by conservative billionaire Charles Koch.

While Florida is trying to make it harder for trans people to vote, California is moving in the opposite direction. Some Los Angeles residents are casting ballots today at the first transgender voting center to open in the US. The idea behind the site is to welcome trans and non-binary voters, who face unique obstacles when casting their ballots. For example, poll workers at the site are expected to accommodate differences between people’s appearances and their driver’s license photos. The polling site is also meant to welcome a marginalized community that faces harassment and may be particularly skeptical of the political process.

Rachel Maddow speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

Haley's candidacy is not seen as one that can defeat Donald Trump for the nomination. But is has been seen as a sort of proxy for this important question of whether or not a portion of the otherwise Republican electorate sees Trump as unacceptable — and won’t vote for him in November.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in North Carolina.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in North Carolina, securing all of the state’s 32 delegates.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Mark Robinson has won North Carolina’s Republican primary for governor, defeating Dale Folwell.

See the latest results here.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Vermont, securing all of the state’s 10 delegates.

See the latest results here.

Rachel Maddow speaking on MSNBC moments ago:

The challenge, I think for the Biden campaign and for Democrats more broadly, is not necessarily to be the top Google results when people start looking up the particular policy issue they are interested in.

Instead, I think that in a very broad strokes way, the message is “those people are talking about crazy radicalism, and we’re talking about popular practical policy things to make government work for you.” If hose can be defined as the two brands of the two parties, you don’t need to sell anything at the microlevel. Because people will understand it in their gut.

These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

NBC News projects that Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Virginia.

See the latest results here.

At this point in 2020, coronavirus had just begun to spread across the U.S., but then-President Trump was feeling confident:

Within two weeks, his administration would declare a national emergency. States, school systems and businesses would shut down in much of the country by the end of the month. By Trump’s last full day in office, the country’s coronavirus death toll passed 400,000. Research has since concluded that hundreds of thousands of those deaths were avoidable — had the Trump White House not bungled its coronavirus response. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A two-term attorney general named Josh runs for governor against a Trump-endorsed Republican with a history of outlandish statements.

That describes Pennsylvania in 2022, where Democrat Josh Shapiro defeated state Sen. Doug Mastriano by nearly 15 percentage points.

Some Democrats now hope it will also describe North Carolina in 2024, where the front-runner for the party’s gubernatorial nomination is state Attorney General Josh Stein, while Republicans appear set to nominate Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

Mastriano was sunk in Pennsylvania by poor fundraising and bad strategic decisions, along with his promotion of QAnon conspiracy theories, election denial, Confederate-uniform wearing and support for strict abortion bans, among other things. 

Democrats will follow a similar playbook against Robinson, who has promoted conspiracy theories about Jewish bankers, labeled school shooting survivors who advocate for gun control “media prosti-tots,” speculated that the founders of Planned Parenthood practiced witchcraft and denounced teaching “transgenderism, homosexuality — any of that filth.”

Once a Democratic beachhead in the South, North Carolina has become increasingly Republican in recent years in races for president, Congress and the state legislature, but the governor’s mansion remains a redoubt. Democrats have won seven out of the last eight governors’ races. Two of those governors previously served as attorneys general, like Stein.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Virginia.

See the latest results here.

Hours after Sen. Krysten Sinema, I-Ariz., announced that she would not be running for reelection, the centrist group No Labels published a post on X lavishing her with praise for her “courageous leadership.” The post gushes that “She’s a voice of commonsense and civility at a moment when America desperately needs more of both.”

One can’t help but wonder if No Labels has their eyes on Sinema as a possible recruit as it scrambles to find a candidate to run for president on their strange centrist platform. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., passed on the opportunity, according to Politico. So did Maryland Republican, Gov. Larry Hogan. The party has a presidential convention in April — with no candidate on its ticket.

Given that Sinema appears to be stepping down in part because she senses that her idiosyncratic centrist style is not particularly welcome in today’s political climate, it seems unlikely she’d volunteer for another round of mass condemnation by pursuing a third-party bid.

With Biden facing only token opposition in the Democratic primary, some Republicans are concerned that Democratic voters may be tempted to interfere with their primary. 

It’s a recurring fear among loyalists of both parties: the other side may be trying to boost a weaker primary candidate, a tactic called “party raiding” or just strategic voting. But there’s little evidence that it happens in significant numbers.

Crossover voting is only possible in open primaries, where non-party members are allowed to vote. Fear of it may be causing some states to close their primaries, including the Super Tuesday state of Tennessee, where polling places are now required to post signs warning that it’s a crime to vote in the primary if you’re not a “bona fide” party member.

But researchers who have studied the issue find little evidence that there are large numbers of voters engaging in this strategy, even in states with relatively open primaries. 

Apart from the fact that it’s difficult to get large numbers of voters to engage in strategic voting, it’s also not always obvious what would be the most effective strategy. After all, in 2016, Democrats might have been tempted to boost Trump as the most seemingly beatable Republican candidate. And in 2024, Haley has done better in some head-to-head polls against Biden.

NBC News exit polls from North Carolina and Virginia show a big gap between Haley voters and Trump voters on Biden’s job approval.

In North Carolina, 48% of Haley’s voters approve of the job Biden is doing in the White House and 52% disapprove. By contrast, 96% of Trump voters disapprove of Biden’s performance and only 2% approve.

There’s a similar disparity in Virginia: Biden is just 3% underwater among Haley’s voters (48% approval to 51% disapproval) but 96% underwater with Trump’s (1% approval, 96% disapproval.

To echo a point MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen made this morning: To win, Trump is going to have to get votes outside his base. But these two findings suggest that Biden has a decent chance at grabbing many of Haley’s voters.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s pitch to Super Tuesday voters before polls closed: This election is about keeping democracy alive. 

“We must use our ballot because our aspirations, our freedom, our democracy are all at stake,” Pelosi said in her closing bid to voters. 

It’s a similar argument to Biden’s 2020 message. Assuming he ends up the Democratic presidential nominee, it remains to be seen if it’s the right approach to mobilize voters in 2024, when Trump’s authoritarian fantasies are more explicit than ever — but unfortunately have also become normalized among large parts of the public.

You may not have Dean Phillips to kick around for much longer.

The extreme long shot for the Democratic presidential nomination, whose campaign has been a head-scratcher from the start, is facing a self-imposed deadline to wrap things up.

In November, the U.S. House representative from Minnesota responded to a critic on X by saying that his campaign would need to be “viable” by Super Tuesday.

“I’ll be clear  — if my campaign is not viable after March 5th, I’ll wrap it up and endorse the likely nominee — Biden or otherwise,” he wrote.

Phillips added that he would “campaign for them as vigorously as I’m campaigning now,” although he may want to set the bar a little higher after his infamous “Government Repair Truck Coffee Conversations” campaign event in New Hampshire, which attracted a grand total of zero voters.

NBC News projects that Biden has won the Democratic presidential caucus in Iowa, securing all of the state’s 40 delegates.

See the latest results here.

The first results are coming in right about now, when Iowa Democrats announce the results of its mail-in primary at 6 p.m. ET. The first actual poll closings will come an hour later, at 7 p.m. ET, in Vermont and Virginia. The final voting of the day will take place in California, where polls will close at 11 p.m. ET, and with Alaska’s GOP caucuses, which will wrap up around 12 a.m. ET.

Some of the states’ results will be projected within minutes of the polls closing, but others — like the U.S. Senate primary in California, where voters overwhelmingly vote by mail — may take days, even weeks to determine.

Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, two astronauts aboard the International Space Station, made a point to let people know that they voted today. And they’re 250 miles above Earth.

What’s your excuse?

In a tough, four-way primary for an open Senate seat in California, Rep. Adam Schiff has received a big boost from some friends in Hollywood.

Schiff, whose current House district includes both some studios and areas where their workers live, picked up endorsements from A-listers like Robert De Niro, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jon Hamm, Bryan Cranston and Mark Hamill. 

When he unveiled a two-minute campaign video in February, it was narrated by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

It’s not uncommon for California politicians to try to add a little Tinseltown glamour — after all, the California Film Commission estimates TV and film support more than 700,000 jobs in the state.  

Democratic rival Rep. Katie Porter has the support of “Parks and Recreation” actor Adam Scott and “Cocaine Bear” director Elizabeth Banks, while fellow liberal Rep. Barbara Lee was endorsed by LaTanya Jackson and playwright Eve Ensler.

The fourth contender, Republican Steve Garvey, is a former first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers and something of a celebrity himself, although past his prime. 

The top two finishers in the nonpartisan primary will face off in November.

Super Tuesday was not always this Tuesday.

In the 1970s, according to the National Constitution Center, the term typically applied to the final Tuesday in June, when a clutch of states did their nominating, including California and New Jersey. In 1980, the “Super Tuesday” phrase was borrowed for a mere three states (Alabama, Florida and Georgia), according to NPR, and then that number increased to nine states in 1984. But most accounts agree that Super Tuesday, as it’s now known, was concocted by Southern Democrats ahead of the 1988 contest, because they hoped to tilt the process in a way that could prevent another candidate like Walter Mondale.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told PBS that “that was the origin of Super Tuesday, to put the Southern states in the early part of the calendar, so that, ideally, in their view, a more moderate candidate would receive a big boost from that particular day’s voting.” The plan didn’t work that way, and Democrats in ’88 ended up with Michael Dukakis.

But the process has remained more or less in place ever since, with some variation in how many states are involved. For example, in 2008 — in the Democratic presidential primary featuring Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — the number of states voting somehow ratcheted up to 20, and they had the temerity to call it “Super Duper Tuesday” (a phrase we should all agree never to use again).

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was indicted today on new criminal charges in the bribery case against him and his wife, Nadine Menendez. The superseding indictment includes federal charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice, bribery, extortion and public official acting as a foreign agent, and it brings the number of charges against the senator to 18.

Menendez and his wife have vehemently denied the accusations and have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Menendez resigned from his powerful role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Sept. 22, the day the first criminal indictment against him was made public. But he has rejected calls from some of his fellow Democrats to resign, and Republican senators have largely decided not to weigh in on the charges against him.

Read more about the superseding indictment from NBC News.

On top of the closely watched race to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California’s many competitive congressional races could determine which party controls the House in 2025. Remember, Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take back the majority.

NBC News reporters Sahil Kapur, Bridget Bowman and Alexandra Marquez have helpfully broken down nine of these races across the diverse state. For those following along at home, pay special attention to:

CA-13

CA-22

CA-27

CA-40

CA-41

CA-45

CA-47

CA-49

CA-09

NBC News correspondent Shaquille Brewster had a shocking conversation about Haley with a voter on a street in tiny Graham, North Carolina. After making mention of a pair of organs below the waist that he thinks a president needs to have, the man said: “All a woman’s good for in my book is having babies and taking care of the house.”

Haley served as governor of neighboring South Carolina for six years and also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. But Brewster made sure to confirm with the voter that he wouldn’t vote for her in the Republican primary because she’s a woman.

Sixteen years ago, as she conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton said her voters had put “18 million cracks” in the “highest, hardest glass ceiling.” Sadly, though, that ceiling is still very much intact.

Taylor Swift, whose endorsement the Biden campaign has reportedly been chasing, is urging her fans to go to the polls and vote.

“Today, March 5, is the Presidential Primary in Tennessee and 16 other states and territories,” the pop star wrote in a statement posted on her Instagram story. “I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent YOU into power. If you haven’t already, make a plan to vote today.”

Arguably the most prominent celebrity at the moment, Swift’s statement is notable for how much it doesn’t say. Although her political statements have largely centered on the importance of voting, she has endorsed Democratic candidates in various races in recent years, including Biden in 2020. The Netflix documentary about her life, “Miss Americana,” included scenes in which Swift debates with her team over whether to go public with her opposition to Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican, in the 2018 midterm elections. 

Swift has yet to weigh in on the candidates in this year’s high-stakes presidential election, and her endorsement could well make an impact. It’s still unclear if she’s interested in publicly throwing her support behind Biden this time around, but it likely won’t assuage right-wing conspiracy theorists who, without any evidence whatsoever, claim that she is a Biden operative.

Much has been made of how, well, unsurprising tonight’s presidential primaries are predicted to be, with both Trump and Biden expected to come away with most of their parties’ delegates. But that doesn’t mean Super Tuesday will be inconsequential — far from it. Several “down-ballot” races around the country could have wide-ranging implications for November and beyond.

Republicans currently control the House of Representatives, but their lead has been shrinking. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to regain control, and a handful of “crossover” races in California could be key to that effort. There are also competitive primaries  in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas.

Only two states with Senate primaries today, but both are of interest. In Texas, incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is expected to win his primary but Democrats have been working hard to position his potential challenger in November. Tonight voters there choose between Rep. Colin Allred and state Sen. Roland Gutierrez. And in California, there is a heated race to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Meanwhile, polarizing Arizona independent Kyrsten Sinema announced she will not be seeking re-election.

Add to that a very expensive, high-stakes North Carolina gubernatorial primary, and Steve Kornacki is likely to be very busy indeed.

Since Iowa, the GOP’s field of presidential candidates has been slowly dwindling (or, if you’re the Democrats, flickering). But even with their campaigns shut down in practice, candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson and Ryan Binkley (remember him?) still appear on the ballot in several states today. And voters can still cast a ballot for them; what happens with those votes or with any delegates bound to an ex-candidate, however, depends to a degree on the state party’s rules.

In Iowa, where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won nine delegates, those delegates will vote for him at the convention, CNN reports, unless there’s only one name advanced in the first round of voting. But DeSantis won those delegates before he dropped out. By contrast, North Carolina voters who favor Chris Christie can rely on the party to tally those votes, WCNC reports. The trick in North Carolina and in a number of other states, however, is that delegates are apportioned to candidates based on a percentage of total votes; and to get any delegates, a candidate needs to hit at least 20% of votes cast in the area that a delegate represents — which seems like a stretch, even for GOP candidates still in the running not named Trump.

On the Democratic side, Biden’s challengers — Rep. Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson and “uncommitted” — are on most (but not all) the ballots and aren’t likely to slow the president’s momentum. That said, the non-Biden contingents are still sending a meaningful signal to the Democratic establishment.

Haley, who pitched herself as a level-headed alternative to Trump, has won just one race — the Republican primary in Washington, D.C. — and so far has picked up a mere 43 delegates to Trump’s 276.

The former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations has resisted calls for her to drop out, vowing to stay in the race through Super Tuesday. But if she performs poorly tonight, her donors may balk at continuing to fund her campaign, no matter how much she wants to stay on.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s electoral plans have been a mystery for months. Now that mystery has been solved: The polarizing Arizona independent won’t be seeking a second term.

While there are no Senate primaries in Arizona today, Sinema's decision will have big implications for both Democrats and Republicans as the parties vie for control of Congress in November.

The math is against Trump, even if he sweeps the board and completely shuts out Haley in every state. He needs to hit 1,215 delegates and already has 276, meaning he needs close to 1,000 more. But there are fewer than 900 delegates at stake today, so the former president might get very close to locking down the Republican nomination — but won’t cross the official threshold.

Today in the presidential nominating contests, we’ll know the result from 16 states (and American Samoa), but not all of the same states for both parties. The 14 states where Democrats and Republicans are both voting are:

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• California
• Colorado
• Maine
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• North Carolina
• Oklahoma
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Vermont
• Virginia

In addition, we’ll find out how things have gone for Democrats in Iowa’s weekslong mail-in contest and with the GOP’s caucuses in Alaska.

While it may seem like Trump and Biden are moving rapidly toward a November matchup, there are technically still plenty of delegates up for grabs. Hundreds of those primary delegates will be allotted on Super Tuesday — even if it takes a few days for all the dust to settle and the final vote tallies to be certified. 

As of today, Trump has been awarded 276 delegates, out of a total of 2,429. He needs a total of 1,215 to secure the Republican nomination, and there are 865 up for grabs today.

Biden currently has 206 delegates, out of a total of 3,936. He needs a total of 1,969 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, and there are 1,420 pledged delegates up for grabs tonight.

Haley, of course, is also still running. She currently has 43 delegates.

Super Tuesday is the day on the presidential primary calendar when the floodgates open: More delegates will be awarded today than on any other day in the nominating cycle.

If Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina gave candidates the chance to kick the tires on the campaign bus, to make their policies and personalities known to voters and to prove to their party they have what it takes to win, then Super Tuesday is when candidates hope to transform any momentum into a commanding lead. (It should also be acknowledged, however, that this election is one of the least competitive in recent memory. The results are to a large extent a foregone conclusion, the process a necessary formality.)

Super Tuesday typically happens in March but can sneak into February, as its timing is determined by when three early-stage states fall on the calendar.