15 States Vote in Contests to Set the Stage for November

Millions of Americans in 15 states and one territory headed to the polls on Super Tuesday for contests that will set the stage for November’s pivotal elections.

President Joe Biden, who has no major opponents for the Democratic nomination, notched Tuesday’s first victory in Iowa, where the results of caucuses that had been conducted entirely by mail came shortly before 6 p.m. Eastern time.

Biden was expected to sweep the Democratic contests, but observers were watching turnout, and the popularity of the “uncommitted” ballot option as a protest vote in states like Minnesota, to gauge enthusiasm for his reelection campaign. Biden is scheduled to give the State of the Union address Thursday.

The Republican contests were being closely watched, with Donald Trump — the dominant front-runner for the nomination — seeking to bounce Nikki Haley from the race. His increasingly probable victory is lining up a rematch with Biden, who ousted Trump from the White House in 2020.

For Haley’s campaign, it is seemingly a do-or-die moment. She has weathered defeat after defeat, briefly interrupted by a small victory Sunday in the Washington, D.C., primary, insisting that she would stay in the race at least until Super Tuesday to give voters in those states the opportunity to make their voices heard.

But polls suggest that Trump is very likely to win most, if not all, of the contests. Recent polls in Texas and California for example — the states that will award the most delegates Tuesday — show him with wide leads and Haley under 30%.

Trump is also benefiting from a series of recent court rulings that have earned him a reprieve from his legal troubles. First the Supreme Court took up his appeal on presidential immunity, effectively delaying one of his four criminal trials — potentially past November — and Monday, the court ruled that states may not bar him from running for another term.

The earliest polls opened at 7 a.m. Eastern time, and the latest will close by 11 p.m. Eastern time in California and midnight in parts of Alaska. It is mathematically impossible for Trump to clinch the nomination on Super Tuesday, but if he wins big, he will be within reach of doing so in the next week or two.

The presidential candidates aren’t the only ones on the ballot. Here’s what else to know:

— There are important House and Senate races in California, where the top two finishers regardless of party move on to the general election. A number of high-profile Democrats are competing for the seat previously held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and primaries in a few key House districts will lay down the battle lines for efforts to win control of the House later this year.

— North Carolina will hold a primary for a governor’s race expected to be one of the most expensive in the country, and House candidates will also be on the ballot there.

— In a brief and nonpartisan message, Taylor Swift urged her 282 million followers on Instagram to vote Tuesday. She did not endorse a candidate.

— Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who was elected as a Democrat but left the party to become an independent, announced that she would not run for reelection. That prevents what could have been a three-way race. Democrats and Republicans will choose their nominees March 19.

— Trump, asked on Fox News about Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, said Israel had to “finish the problem.” But he gave no details on what he would do if elected again and did not take a position on a cease-fire, which Vice President Kamala Harris recently called for.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .