Find out what to watch for on Super Tuesday.
Voters in 15 states, including the titans of California and Texas, will go to the polls on March 5 on Super Tuesday, which is expected to set up a rematch for the White House in November between US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
These contests will also determine the contours of the House and Senate races that will form the legislative branch next year.
TSN.ua offers you an adaptation of The New York Times material, in which the author tells you what else is worth paying attention to after the results are published.
Will Nikki Gailey continue her campaign?
Nikki Gailey, the former governor of South Carolina and Trump's first ambassador to the United Nations, won her first Republican primary on Sunday, March 3, in D.C. and could score several more victories on Tuesday. Moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have endorsed her in recent days, just ahead of their state elections on Super Tuesday.
Minnesota's open primary on Tuesday will allow Democrats to vote for Gailey if they choose. And a poll in Virginia showed her moving closer to Trump.
But the largest number of delegates — 169 in California and 161 in Texas — will almost certainly go to the former president, and Super Tuesday is important to Gailey's donors, who need to make sure she has a chance. More than a third of all delegates will be elected on Tuesday, not enough to make Trump the likely candidate, but enough to make him the overwhelming favorite.
After this, Gailey will be faced with a choice with huge consequences: drop out of the race and support Trump, drop out of the race and withhold any support, stay in the race until her money runs out, or consider the possibility of running for a third party? (She has stated that she will not do so, but the centrist group Without Labels continues to hope that she will join their list).
How Trump will win?
The nation witnessed two reactions to the victory of the former president and the front-runner for the third Republican nomination. After winning the New Hampshire primary in January, Trump ridiculed Gailey's dress and criticized it for trying to make the most of his 43 percent second-place finish. Since his victory in Gailey's home state of South Carolina last month, he hasn't mentioned it.
Trump has made no secret of his desire to launch a general election campaign against Biden, as well as his disappointment with Galey's stubborn rebellion, which included harsh words about intemperance, age, loyalty to the Constitution and loyalty to veterans and military personnel active service of her former boss.
It's expected to be a big night for Trump. If he lashes out at a defeated fellow Republican, he risks pushing some of her voters further away from him, and perhaps toward Biden.
Will pro-Palestinian protests bother Biden?
Either way, Biden faces even greater challenges in reuniting the coalition of voters that gave him victory in 2020, but unlike the GOP, Tuesday night's Democratic disharmony will not show up in votes for an alternative candidate. It may manifest itself in voting for undetermined ones.
Even after Biden won a supermajority in Michigan last week, 13.2 percent of voters in the Democratic primary voted “undecided,” most of them protesting the president's leanings to Israel in its brutal conflict with Hamas in Gaza. The result underscores the fragility of the Democratic coalition, especially among young progressives and Arab Americans, as Biden begins a difficult path to re-election.
Biden's next test is Tuesday in Minnesota. The state has far fewer Arab-American voters than Michigan, but Minneapolis has a strong progressive base. Protest leaders are hoping for 10,000 “undecided” votes, a fraction of the 101,436 who voted last Tuesday. Biden's seven percent victory in the state in 2020 was more comfortable than his three percent victory in Michigan.
But trailing in the polls, Biden needs to unify his party, and pro-Palestinian voices realize they have leverage to try to change U.S. policy on the war. His headache will continue in Washington state on March 12, where progressives are preparing their next “no strings attached” campaign.
California primaries followed by ballots
California's most critical primary will be held Tuesday in the nation's largest state, thanks to an unusual voting system in which the top two finishers face off on Election Day, regardless of party affiliation.
The main battle is for the Senate seat held until last year by Dianne Feinstein, who died in September at the age of 90. The competition features three Democratic heavyweights, all from the California delegation to the House of Representatives: Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.
For much of the campaign, it looked like the top two finalists would be Democrats, Schiff and Porter. Then came the famous Republican, former Los Angeles Dodgers player Steve Garvey. He didn't run a major campaign, but Schiff, deciding that a Democratic state like California would make it easier for a Republican to win in November, spent $10 million on ads that purportedly attacked Garvey as “too conservative for California” but deliberately boosted him . candidacy.
On Tuesday, Schiff will see if his strategy works or if Porter can jump into second place.
This primary system also comes into play in the race for the House seat in the Central Valley, which Democrats are eager to take from Republican incumbent David Valadao. This district would have given Biden a 13 percentage point lead in 2020, but Democrats will have to fight each other before they have a chance to try to win it.
The party's chosen candidate, a former Assembly member named Rudy Salas, faces a spirited Democratic opponent in Melissa Hurtado, whose state Senate seat mirrors the U.S. House district. Both want to become the first representative of Mexican Americans in the Central Valley, but if Democratic turnout is low and divided, Valadao could face Republican challenger Chris Mathis in November. Democrats will lose one of their few chances to compete for the seat of Republicans who prefer Biden.
Redistribution of territories causes damage in both directions
House primaries in North Carolina and Alabama will show how redistricting will help and hurt both parties in the fight for control of the House, where Republicans hold a three-seat advantage.
In North Carolina, a Republican supermajority in the state Legislature has redrawn the map so thoroughly that a state with a Democratic governor and a nearly 50-50 partisan split is likely out of 14 House seats. 10 Republicans would win a seven-to-seven majority.
Three incumbent Democrats, Jeff Jackson, Wiley Nickel and Katie Manning, have decided not to even run for re-election.
In Alabama, a Supreme Court ruling that the state's Republican-drawn maps unconstitutionally denied representation to black voters has created new divisions that will pit two incumbent House Republicans, Jerry Karl and Barry Moore, against each other. Meanwhile, at least 11 candidates will be vying for the new district, which is nearly 49% black and which Biden would have won by more than 12 points in 2020.
In Texas, the ousted attorney general seeks revenge
When Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, was impeached by the state House of Representatives, which is tightly controlled by his own party, it looked like the final nonpartisan rebuke.
The Texas House of Representatives, by a lopsided vote of 121 to 23, approved 20 articles of impeachment related to allegations that a former top lawmaker abused his office for his own benefit, as well as an Austin real estate investor and campaign donor who helped Paxton renovate his home and also helped Paxton in extramarital affairs. (Paxton declared these accusations to be false.)
Last September, after a nine-day trial, he was acquitted by the Texas Senate. On Tuesday, Paxton seeks revenge on the Republicans who accused him.
Republicans with ties to Paxton or the state's conservative Gov. Greg Abbott are challenging other Republicans in more than two dozen races. For good measure, Paxton is trying to reshape the state's highest criminal court by firing three Republican judges serving on the Court of Criminal Appeals.
If opponents succeed, the nation's largest and richest conservative state will likely shift further to the right.
North Carolina voters set for tight race for governor
North Carolina has a special habit of electing Republican presidential candidates, Republican legislatures, and Democratic governors.
In 2024, when current Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is term-limited and cannot seek re-election, Republicans hope to break that streak, although primary voters are likely to nominate candidate who can extend it. Mark Robinson, the state's conservative lieutenant governor with a history of offensive and polarizing remarks, including disparaging members of the LGBT community, appears poised to win the nomination for the top job, challenging the presumptive Democratic nominee for a soft-hearted, popular attorney general.
The race will be closely watched. North Carolina nearly made it to Trump in 2020 as Cooper was re-elected. Robinson could get a boost from the presidential campaign, or Biden could get a boost from the gubernatorial race.
Author information: Jonathan Weissman< /strong> is a political commentator who covers campaigns with an emphasis on economic and labor policy.
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