Super Tuesday: the devil is in the details

Good morning and happy Super Tuesday!

Voters in 15 states are hitting the polls in the biggest primary day on the election calendar, and tonight’s results will put the US one step closer to a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch. Welcome to US Election Countdown.

It is expected to be a bizarrely anticlimactic Super Tuesday. With the field of candidates already whittled down, Trump is the clear frontrunner over Nikki Haley. But the details of Trump and Biden’s support will reveal important clues about the general election. FT.com will have live coverage of the voting day and be sure to check out the FT’s new WhatsApp channel for a daily update on the biggest plot line in the race.

We’ll be watching voter turnout for hints about whether Biden or Trump is least disliked amid a palpable lack of enthusiasm for a 2020 reprise. Trump has also underperformed his pre-election polling averages in multiple major primary contests.

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But Trump still has momentum [free to read]. The US Supreme Court yesterday ruled that he could stay on the ballot in states that tried to boot him off. He has won nearly every Republican contest, and anticipated wins tonight will put him well on his way to locking the party’s nomination by the end of the month. In general election polls he is leading Biden by 2.1 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics average.

We’ll be waiting to see if this is the night Trump dispatches Haley. She won her first contest at the weekend — Washington, DC — but her path to victory is virtually nonexistent. If that doesn’t push her to drop out of the race soon, a big question will be whether she has enough money to keep going.

Biden is also on his way to easy victories with no serious challengers, but the pressure is on to show voters and the Democratic party that he is fit enough to do the job again. An NYT-Siena College poll found that a majority of his 2020 supporters thought he was too old to be an effective president now. And after Michigan’s “uncommitted” vote laid bare pushback to Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, we’ll be watching whether Minnesota — second to Michigan in its percentage of Arab Americans — could follow.

Biden will try to shock his campaign back into rhythm during his State of the Union speech on Thursday and lay out a vision for the future. He spent the weekend preparing for the address at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.

With their party nominations pretty much in the bag, expect to see Biden and Trump start campaigning hard in these six battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all of which could be won with the tiniest of margins.

Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

• When voters cast their ballots in November, they might not yet know the outcome of all of Trump’s criminal cases — let us refresh your mind on how they’re shaping up.

• In this deeply reported profile, Biden projected defiant confidence as he takes on his final campaign. (The New Yorker)

• Learn what primary exit polls have told us about how Trump’s base has changed. (Washington Post)

• The US Supreme Court has thrown odds in Trump’s favour that he won’t have to stand trial on charges that he sought to overturn the 2020 election results until after this year’s White House race.

• The co-founders of the Trump media group that operates the former president’s Truth Social platform have sued the company, alleging he and other executives are trying to dilute their stakes through a “last-minute stock grab”.

• Palm Beach awaits Trump’s return.

Behind the scenes

Tonight Democrats will be closely watching California [free to read], where three current members of the US House of Representatives, each of whom symbolises a different wing of the party, are vying for the Senate seat vacated by the death of Dianne Feinstein.

Barbara Lee is an activist best known for her opposition to granting the White House sweeping powers in the wake of the September 11 2001 attacks. Katie Porter is a progressive à la pro-regulation Elizabeth Warren. And Adam Schiff, a former Los Angeles prosecutor, is the most centrist, though he has moved left along with the party.

But a Republican novice could win liberal California’s contest tonight due to its quirky ballot. The Golden State has a so-called jungle primary, in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election — regardless of party.

Record low turnout is expected and with Republican support consolidated around former LA Dodgers star Steve Garvey, the former baseball player could end up on top, Mike Madrid, former head of the California Republican party, told the FT’s Christopher Grimes. But this does not mean “Blue” California is turning “Red”.

“We could see a situation where people said, ‘Oh my God, Steve Harvey got more votes. Does that mean California’s finally competitive?” Madrid said. “And the answer is no, this actually doesn’t mean anything.”

Datapoint

In Texas’s primary results tonight we could learn just how far to the right Trump has pulled the Republican party, as immigration remains an ongoing flashpoint in the White House race.

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The influx of migrants into Democratic strongholds, bussed to major US cities by the likes of Texas governor Greg Abbott, has made the issue inescapable for Democrats. Trump and his fellow Republicans have seized the moment to blame Biden for a wave of “migrant crime”.

From the border city of Brownsville, Texas, last week, Biden told Republican lawmakers to “show a little spine” and pass a stalled bipartisan immigration bill. Trump has said he does not want it passed, presumably so he can keep campaigning on the issue. Even Haley jumped into the fray, blaming an “unhinged” Trump for blocking the deal.

And locals are getting tired of the spotlight on the border, the FT’s Myles McCormick told me:

“Based on the conversations I had with locals in Brownsville, Trump’s efforts to keep immigration as a live political issue has been an astute political move — the longer the border stays in focus, the more frustrated they grow with Biden.”

“The way [homeland security secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas and Biden have interpreted the asylum system, you can just come in and say I have a credible fear,” Scott Fry, a local engineer, told McCormick.

Arturo Treviño, whose family owns construction and retail businesses in Brownsville and neighbouring Matamoros, Mexico, said too many local resources were being directed towards immigration, impeding regular travel across the border. An independent voter, Treviño said he planned to vote for Trump.

Viewpoints

• The latest FT Swamp Notes newsletter flags what to watch on this Super Tuesday [available for premium subscribers].

• Biden’s conviction that America should be number one comes at a price, writes Adam Tooze.

• Rana Foroohar considers what Super Tuesday does to the economy of the mind.

• The FT’s editorial board argues that the US Supreme Court has helped Trump to the point that it could change the 2024 election.

• Patti Waldmeir asks voters what they think about Biden’s age.

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