Former President Donald Trump is likely to take a giant leap toward winning the GOP nomination on Super Tuesday in three weeks, when 16 states and territories will hold their primary contests—setting him up to surge ahead of his final challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
A combined 874 delegates, or 72% of the 1,215 needed to earn a majority and clinch the GOP nomination, will be up for grabs on the first Tuesday in March.
Trump’s path to the nomination appears all-but-certain as he’s leading Haley in polls in multiple upcoming primaries, including in major Super Tuesday states Texas and California, and in two that will hold their primaries before then: South Carolina on Feb. 24 and Michigan on Feb. 27, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages.
None of the Super Tuesday states award delegates on an outright winner-take-all basis, so it’s unclear how many Trump will net that day, which is also dependent on whether Haley is still in the race—though she has shown no signs she’s planning on dropping out.
Trump has won 63 delegates so far in the three states that have already voted, and calculations show he is likely to surpass the threshold to win by March 19, when five states will hold their primaries, including delegate-rich Florida.
While Trump has swept all three primary contests so far—Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada—he hasn’t won all of the delegates outright, since all three states award delegates on a proportional basis, and prior to the Jan. 15 primary kickoff in Iowa, he was competing with biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in addition to Haley.
March 5. The states and territories that will hold primary elections on that day are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and American Samoa.
2,429. That’s the total number of GOP delegates.
Haley is likely to face renewed pressure to drop out of the race if she underperforms in her home state of South Carolina on Feb. 24, when 50 delegates will be awarded proportionally, with a winner take all trigger. Trump already has an edge in the state, with endorsements from Gov. Henry McMaster and Sen. Tim Scott and polls showing him leading Haley by 34 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.
Trump and President Joe Biden appear to be headed for an unprecedented rematch and a tight race as polls currently show Trump leading Biden by less than two points. The Republican Party has largely coalesced behind Trump, despite his multiple ongoing criminal and civil cases, and polls have shown for months it would defy history if Trump were to lose the nomination given his months-long double-digit polling lead.
Biden has secured all 91 delegates in the three Democratic primaries that have taken place so far in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Author Marianne Williamson dropped out of the race after New Hampshire and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) has failed to secure any delegates so far. The same 16 states and territories that will hold their GOP presidential primaries on Super Tuesday—except Alaska and in addition to Iowa—will also hold their Democratic primaries that day.
