The Super Tuesday primaries are the largest voting day of the year in the United States aside from the November general election.
Voters in 16 states and one territory are choosing presidential nominees. Some states are also deciding who should run for governor, senator or district attorneys.
Party primaries, caucuses or presidential preference votes are being held in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
Find AP’s full coverage of Super Tuesday 2024 at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Here’s the latest:
Israel-Hamas war has some Democrats voting ‘uncommitted’ in protest of Biden
LITTLETON, Colo. — President Joe Biden still faces a protest vote as some people are casting their ballots on Tuesday for “uncommitted” because of his support of Israel.
U.S. Air Force veteran Keira Havens, 40, said she backed “uncommitted” over Biden’s response to the conflict.
“This is the only tool I have to put pressure on them right now, I’m going to use it,” Havens said.
Marcus Casillas, 29, said the argument from other Democrats to vote for Biden because former President Donald Trump would be less supportive of Palestinians isn’t convincing.
“I firmly believe that in order for me to vote for someone, they need to earn the vote,” Casillas said. “I want to have belief in what I’m doing when I make that choice.”
Nikki Haley gets surprise win in Vermont’s Republican presidential primary
WASHINGTON — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley scored a surprise victory on Super Tuesday, upsetting Donald Trump to win Vermont.
However, that victory will do little to dent Trump’s primary dominance. The former president won 11 other states on Super Tuesday.
Haley is the last major rival to Trump standing in a once-crowded primary field. She increasingly has stepped up her attacks on the former president, arguing he will lose in November to President Joe Biden if he clinches the party’s nomination.
On the Democratic side, Biden also ran up the score with wins all around the country against only token primary opposition — all but cementing the long-expected November rematch between him and Trump.
Trump offers little celebration in victory speech at Mar-a-Lago
In a speech Tuesday evening at a victory party in Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump condemned Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, foreign policy and especially the U.S.-Mexico border.
But he offered little in the way of prescriptions during his 20-minute speech and instead ticked through moments in his administration, several of them more than five years ago.
“We’re going to make America great again, greater than ever before,” he said.
Biden’s Super Tuesday focus is on Trump
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is choosing not to revel in his Super Tuesday nomination wins, instead releasing a statement telling Americans it is time to defend democracy.
“My message to the country is this,” Biden said in a written statement from his campaign. “Every generation of Americans will face a moment when it has to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights. To every Democrat, Republican, and independent who believes in a free and fair America: This is our moment. This is our fight. Together, we will win.”
Biden is casting Republican Donald Trump as someone willing to reverse his policies on taxes and improved affordability for prescription drugs. But, mostly, the written statement was an admonition to voters about Trump’s time in office and that the former president cares about “revenge and retribution, not the American people.”
Haley’s campaign pushed to the brink after Super Tuesday trouncing
NEW YORK — Nikki Haley has suffered a string of significant losses Tuesday, and it’s prompting allies to believe the end of her 2024 presidential campaign may be near.
Haley didn’t make any public statements as officials counted ballots coast-to-coast late into the night. Privately, her team expected Republican rival Donald Trump to win almost every one of the evening’s contests, despite their best efforts to stop him. Haley spent the night huddled with staff watching returns near her South Carolina home.
Trump is expected to win the necessary 1,215 delegates to become the GOP’s presumptive nominee later this month.
Trump is getting primary wins, but criminal cases still loom large
WASHINGTON — The criminal charges against former President Donald Trump have done nothing to hurt his appeal with most Republican voters.
Trump is collecting wins that put him closer to the GOP nomination and a likely 2020 rematch against President Joe Biden. But he’s still got an array of looming court cases, including one based on accusations he mishandled classified material and another on his false claims about winning the 2020 election. Jury selection in his New York hush-money trial will begin March 25.
AP VoteCast found that 74% of South Carolina primary voters said the criminal charges are a political attempt to undermine Trump. Still, a third of Republican voters in that state also said they think he did something illegal in at least one of the cases against him.
North Carolina governor nominees play up their differences in victory speeches
RALEIGH, N.C. — The Democratic and Republican nominees for North Carolina governor are playing up their differences in Tuesday speeches to supporters.
Josh Stein is the Democrat and the state’s current attorney general. Mark Robinson, the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, is a former factory worker who has the endorsement of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
“Today we took an important first step, but we must be clear-eyed about the stakes of this election,” Stein said in a victory speech to supporters in Raleigh. “We’re at a crossroads,” he said. He told supporters Robinson’s vision for the state was “bleak and divisive.”
Robinson described himself as an underdog.
“The differences could not be more clear,” Robinson said at a Greensboro victory party. “I’m sure the people of North Carolina will make the right choice.”
Utah voters planning for a GOP caucus with polite discourse and food
BOUNTIFUL, Utah — As voters in other states across the Mountain West line up at the polls on Tuesday, Utah Republicans are doing things differently.
Thousands of voters are flooding into Millcreek Junior High School, one of 2,300 neighborhood caucus locations around the state where residents will debate the candidates as a group before casting votes in a preference poll. Voters are bringing plates of food to eat during the coming debates.
“We want to have good, strong political discourse tonight,” said Lisa Fifield, the Bountiful, Utah, caucus director.
Utah’s 40 delegates will be distributed proportionally between the candidates unless one receives over 50% of the vote, which would earn them all of the state’s delegates.
Biden loses in American Samoa, a US territory in the South Pacific
WASHINGTON — Jason Palmer defeated President Joe Biden in American Samoa, a tiny U.S. territory in the South Pacific.
According to the local Democratic Party, Palmer won 51 votes and Biden won 40. There were only six delegates up for grabs there in a contest that requires nearly 2,000, but it’s still a notable setback for an incumbent president. Palmer is a Baltimore-based investor.
This isn’t the first time that American Samoa has turned up surprising results in a primary. During the 2020 Democratic race, it was the only contest won by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor.
Only elected challenger to Biden laughs off losses in states’ Democratic primaries Tuesday
WASHINGTON — Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, the only elected Democrat to challenge President Joe Biden in their party’s primary, isn’t coming close to winning anywhere on Tuesday — but he’s trying not to let it get him down.
“Congratulations to Joe Biden, Uncommitted, Marianne Williamson, and Nikki Haley for demonstrating more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me,” Phillips posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Phillips has remained in the race despite providing only token opposition to Biden and no real chance of challenging him nationally. His home state of Minnesota is among those holding a Democratic primary on Super Tuesday — but he isn’t expected to win there, either.
Biden looks past Tuesday to State of the Union address
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is flying under the radar on Super Tuesday, looking ahead to his State of the Union address on Thursday.
Biden did little official campaigning as the incumbent coasts toward his party’s nomination a second time.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Biden would be “kept updated” throughout the evening.
“He’ll be aware of what’s going on tonight as we see elections happening across the country,” she told reporters. “I just don’t have anything specific on that.”
The low-key approach is part scheduling, as Biden spends hours in preparation sessions with top aides for Thursday’s big speech, and part by design, as he projects his focus is on the November race.
Here’s where Super Tuesday voting stands
WASHINGTON — The biggest night of the primary campaign is half over. So far, there haven’t been any surprises.
President Joe Biden has easily carried all the Democratic contests, winning Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Vermont.
Republican front-runner former President Donald Trump clinched Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
Full results will take at least a few more hours. Voting in Alaska doesn’t end until midnight EST.
Although Biden and Trump are expected to be their party’s nominee, neither will be declared the “presumptive nominee” tonight. Trump won’t have enough delegates until March 12, and Biden will have to wait until March 19.
No cyber threats to elections on Super Tuesday, cybersecurity official says
CHICAGO — The first major voting date on this year’s primary calendar passed without major issues Tuesday, a senior official for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said.
The official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the elections, said there were no specific, credible threats or deliberate nefarious activities as states across the country held Super Tuesday elections.
The official said they are aware of social media outages Tuesday that caused widespread login issues for a few hours across Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Messenger platforms, but they are not aware of any election nexus.
Trump wins Maine GOP primary despite five-term senator’s endorsement of Haley
WASHINGTON — Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins endorsed Nikki Haley in her home state.
But Donald Trump easily won the state’s GOP primary regardless, illustrating how the former president has nationalized politics.
Collins is a five-term senator, but her opinion appears to carry little weight on presidential matters with her own constituents.
Girl Scout sells cookies at Colorado polling site to encourage people to vote
LITTLETON, Colo. — At a polling site in Colorado, 8-year-old Kaiah Ezell is with her mom selling Girl Scout cookies and encouraging people to vote.
“We are a big American family,” said mom Ally Ezell, 26.
Ezell, bedecked in American flag pants and a shirt stamped with “Patriot,” confirmed they’ll take Venmo to a customer buying shortbread. “Did you get a chance to vote today?” Ezell asked the customer. They had not.
She said she voted for Trump because “I personally think that our economy and our country were in the best spot when he was president.” She added that with a fiancé who’s a veteran, her top voting issue was “getting back to patriotism.”
Kaiah bounced around the truck bed, digging out cookies for customers and calculating the change, but her mom said she isn’t following politics much yet.
Biden’s campaign is betting the general election will be a referendum on Trump
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s campaign is hoping tonight’s results will clarify the choice for voters this November. It’s an all-but-certain rematch between the incumbent president and former President Donald Trump.
Biden’s team is making an all-in wager that it can make the general election into a referendum on Trump. They’re betting voters who rejected Trump in 2020 — and GOP candidates in 2022 and 2023 — will do so again this November, even if they have little enthusiasm for Biden.
It’s clear many voters dislike both Biden and Trump — but Biden’s team is hoping those who dislike their choices at the ballot box will break their way.
Voters misled about newly created Alabama congressional district ahead of casting ballots
WASHINGTON — Efforts to boost Black representation in Alabama were marred on Tuesday when more than 6,000 voters in the new 2nd Congressional District received postcards with incorrect voting information, officials said.
The postcards misidentified the voters’ district because of a “software glitch,” according to a county official. The official said anyone was still allowed to cast ballots for the right candidates when they went to their precincts.
Advocates expressed concern that the error could have discouraged turnout in the first election with new district maps.
