Wednesday Briefing

Millions of Americans went to the polls yesterday.Credit…Desiree Rios for The New York Times

Super Tuesday primaries suggested a presidential rematch

Super Tuesday, during which millions of U.S. voters went to the polls for primaries in 15 states, indicated that Americans will likely face a presidential rematch between two deeply unpopular candidates in 2024: Donald Trump vs. President Biden.

By late Tuesday night, Biden had swept all of the states that held Democratic contests, and Trump had won by decisive margins in nearly all of the Republican ones. Here’s the latest news.

Trump’s dominance at the polls made a realistic path to victory for his challenger, Nikki Haley, very unlikely. But there was one bright spot for Haley: The Associated Press said that she had won Vermont, her first state primary win. She had earlier prevailed in Washington, D.C.

Haley has weathered defeat after defeat, but vowed to stay in the race at least through Super Tuesday. Winning even one state “would definitely help Nikki Haley’s argument that she’s a viable alternative to Trump,” my colleague Kellen Browning said before Tuesday’s primaries. “But she would still be at a significant mathematical disadvantage.”

Biden did not face any major opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination. But he did face another challenge: the possibility that primary voters would select “uncommitted” as a way to protest the administration’s stance on Israel, as more than 100,000 did in Michigan. The protests in Super Tuesday states were more fragmented, and organized in far less time than Michigan’s had been, but in Minnesota enough voters chose “uncommitted” to win delegates.

Background: These primaries do not ultimately decide who will become president, or even directly pick candidates for the elections in November. Instead, primaries award delegates, who will vote for the winning candidate at each party’s nominating convention this summer.