4 things to watch for on Super Tuesday

It’s the biggest day of the year for presidential primaries and caucuses, and they’re on track to be decisive for Donald Trump. Super Tuesday is widely expected to be Nikki Haley’s last stand in the Republican presidential contest. And there are other fascinating races involving Democrats.

Here’s what to watch on Tuesday.

Does Nikki Haley drop out after Tuesday?

Haley argues, correctly, that most states have not voted in the Republican presidential nominating contests yet. Nearly 90 percent of delegates haven’t been awarded.

But that changes on Super Tuesday. If Trump does well in the 15 states and one territory voting, the race is nearly over, mathematically speaking. More than a third of all delegates are awarded on Super Tuesday, and Trump could win most of those.

It will still take Trump a few more weeks to officially clinch the nomination by winning enough delegates, but he is on track to make this the shortest competitive primary season in recent presidential history.

Haley’s campaign isn’t projecting she wins a single state, but her allies are hoping that she can get 40 percent in states with more moderate Republican voters, such as Massachusetts or Colorado or Virginia or Vermont.

Haley’s decision to stay in the Republican primaries despite only winning a single race so far - Washington, D.C. - is somewhat of a mystery, with plenty of theories. But at this point, the practical effect is that she is slowing the inevitable.

But Haley does seem to be hoping to go down in the history books as the last person willing to challenge Trump before he secures his party’s presidential nomination for the third time.

Yet she will also likely be known for running a campaign that was doomed to fail from the start. She didn’t directly attack Trump until it was too late (“Chaos follows Donald Trump,” she would say, without attributing it to him.)

How many never-Trump Republicans are there, really?

Haley is also a useful measure of the anti-Trump vote on the right. Trump engenders strong emotions, and there’s a slice of the Republican base that can’t stand him. “There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative,” Haley said after her loss in South Carolina, explaining why she was staying in the race.

If you drill down into how many Republicans supported Haley throughout the early primaries, it averages roughly 30 percent, said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and Trump critic.

The next question is what those voters do in November. Are they anti-Trump to their core, like the Liz Cheneys of the world? Would some of them vote for President Biden, or sit out the race entirely? Either would definitely help Biden in the general election.

“Being pro-Nikki doesn’t automatically mean you are anti-Trump,” Longwell said. “But that is a persuadable opportunity.”

Or are they Trump voters come November? Especially if Haley endorses Trump. And then there really wouldn’t be resistance left to speak of in the Republican Party.

Tuesday will give us more data on this.

How will President Biden do with his party base?

Biden is also on the ballot Tuesday in 15 states and one territory. There’s no serious risk he will lose the nomination (Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) is in the race, but he hasn’t earned a single delegate).

But the wide swath of states voting Tuesday gives Democrats a chance to gauge Biden’s strength during a tumultuous time for his presidency.

A notable number of reliable Democratic voters in Michigan voted “uncommitted” last week, rather than for Biden, to protest his handling of the war in Gaza. A New York Times-Siena College poll finds a majority of the people who voted for Biden in 2020 think he’s too told to be an effective president.

Not every state allows voters the option of “uncommitted,” but there is an Abandon Biden campaign that could manifest in other ways on Super Tuesday and beyond.

But Democrats also see this week as an opportunity for Biden. He could have another dominant primary performance, and then he is giving a State of the Union address to Congress two days afterward. “Joe Biden has been crushing every primary contest up until now,” Democratic strategist Tim Hogan said. “It’s a big week in terms of building momentum for the campaign.”

How does the wild California Senate primary turn out?

Open U.S. Senate seats in California don’t come up very often. But after the death of Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, there is a rare chance for another Democrat to hold this powerful seat for decades.

The primary is on Tuesday. The two big names are Democratic members of Congress: Adam Schiff, who helped lead Trump’s first impeachment, and Katie Porter, a liberal known for viral takedowns of Republicans. A third notable Democratic member of Congress, Barbara Lee, is also running.

Both Schiff and Porter have a real shot at winning the Senate seat in November. But California is an all-party primary, which means the top two vote-getters advance to November’s general election regardless of party.

Schiff is likely to get the first general election spot. And he would much rather face the Republican, former baseball player Steve Garvey, in the November election. So he has been spending heavily to boost Garvey. And now there’s a real risk that Porter could lose the second general election spot to Garvey, reports The Washington Post’s Maeve Reston.