Trump and Biden Crushed Super Tuesday. But There Were Still Some Genuine Surprises.
The Slate Decision Desk tabulated votes and worked campaign insiders all night Super Tuesday, and to a person, we reached a conclusion: Donald Trump and Joe Biden are in excellent shape to win their respective parties’ presidential nominations. Sorry, Nikki-Pickies and neo-Deaniacs. The data is singing to us loud and clear.
In other words, there weren’t many surprises in the presidential primary results this week as more than a dozen states cast ballots for presidential nominees. (There was a surprise, though.)
Donald Trump won all but one Republican contest over Nikki Haley, and his wins were all by double-digit margins. The one state in which Haley took a victory—her second of the cycle, after winning the District of Columbia over the weekend—was Vermont, which is not a delegate-rich state.
Biden, meanwhile, won every state primary by substantial, incumbent-sized margins. He did not win every contest, however. He lost the American Samoa caucus 51 to 40. (That’s not percentage; those are raw vote numbers.) Biden was bested there by a fella named Jason Palmer, a self-described “entrepreneur, impact investor and philanthropist” from Baltimore who appears to have told American Samoans that he’s very popular in the mainland. How nice for him.
While Haley didn’t speak on Tuesday night, her next speech could be a suspension of her campaign, now that Trump is on the verge of capturing a majority of total delegates.
Vermont aside, her best chances for wins were in moderate or blue states, with high percentages of college-educated voters and open primaries for non-Republicans to infiltrate. But Haley didn’t come close to winning states that matched this profile, like Minnesota, Virginia, Colorado, or Massachusetts; her margins among her targeted voters weren’t nearly what Trump’s were among his. In Virginia, for example, exit polls—which are subject to revision—showed Haley winning college graduates, who made up about half the primary electorate, by a few points. Trump won non-college voters there, meanwhile, by a 4-to-1 margin. Yes, Trump will have issues with suburban voters in the fall. What else is new? But right now he has the group that matters in Republican primary season: Republicans. By a lot.
Among the weaknesses within Joe Biden’s coalition, “uncommitted” appears to have made noise again after winning 100,000 protest votes in the Michigan primary last week. In Minnesota, which has substantial Muslim and progressive communities, nearly 20 percent of Democratic primary voters had chosen “uncommitted” with most of the vote counted. “Uncommitted” in Minnesota was trouncing actual, human Democratic primary challenger Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota. This prompted Phillips to post one of the better tweets of this sleepy primary season, although he failed to mention Jason Palmer.
In the marquee down-ballot race of the night—winners for which were called surprising quickly—Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey will advance to November’s election. Schiff had spent significant money and messaging trying to elevate Garvey as his main opponent, recognizing that it’s not especially hard to defeat a Republican in a California general election. You can call this a cynical strategy, and one that might help Republican turnout down-ballot in November. But what’s important to Schiff is that you’ll soon call him a senator. Other California races were too early to call at publication time, but both Democrats and Republicans appeared likely to get their preferred candidates onto the November ballot in the 22nd District, one of the most competitive swing seats in the country.
In Texas, Dallas-area Democratic Rep. Colin Allred will face Sen. Ted Cruz in one of the only even marginal Senate pickup opportunities for Democrats this fall. GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, who attracted a slew of primary opponents for occasional maverick stands such as supporting a bipartisan gun safety measure, is poised for a May runoff against Brandon Herrera, a YouTuber who goes by the moniker “the AK Guy” and who … really loves guns. In the Texas state House, meanwhile, Speaker Dade Phelan appeared headed to a runoff against his Trump-backed challenger, David Covey. Attorney General Ken Paxton had made Phelan a target following the Phelan-led impeachment of him last year, which Paxton survived.
The first member-on-member primary of the cycle, between Reps. Jerry Carl and Barry Moore on a redistricted Alabama map, was running exceptionally close late into the night, with Moore (the one who likes Rep. Matt Gaetz) and Carl (the one who doesn’t care for Mr. Gaetz) going back and forth. In the end, though, Moore narrowly finished off Carl, 52 to 48.
In North Carolina’s 6th District, the current Trump endorsee, lobbyist Addison McDowell, was narrowly leading a loaded field of competitors that included ex-Rep. Mark Walker and former Trump endorsee Bo Hines. Hines was in a distant fourth.
Overall, the night confirmed that which so many Americans still find too mystifying to accept as reality: Trump and Biden will be heading to a rematch in November, carrying with them all of the lumps that this primary season has exposed. That is locked in. But down-ballot races are only beginning, with meaningful races across the country still to come.
Presidential primary season is effectively over. But the next few months can be seen like a midterms season, with most House, Senate, state, and local races yet to be determined.