Super Tuesday primaries: Live updates and results as polls begin closing

The presidential race is not the only contest voters will be weighing in on on Super Tuesday and some of the down-ballot races are likely to prove far more nail-biting.

Here’s your guide to the other key races to look out for:

The senator from Arizona said she was choosing to leave “because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together on stuff”.

Ms Sinema was a Democrat, but switched to be independent in 2022.

Her decision makes the border state’s politics likely to be it one of the most talked-about parts of the country as the presidential election nears, as her presence in the 2024 race was likely to set up a three-way fight between herself and the two major-party challengers for her seat.

President Joe Biden notched his first Super Tuesday win in Iowa.

You’d be forgiven for being surprised to see Iowa results on Super Tuesday. The state is legendary for kicking off the presidential campaign every four years with its famed caucuses. But Democrats changed the process in Iowa after a meltdown in releasing results in 2020.

The trouble prompted the national party to reshuffle the election calendar this year with a goal of emphasizing more diverse states. That left Iowa Democrats sending ballots in the mail, with results released on Tuesday.

Republicans moved forward with the traditional caucuses in January with Trump posting a dominant, nearly 30 percentage point win over his closest rivals.

In the wake of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s death, the race to replace her seat has come down to three Democratic Representatives and two Republicans, one of them a former baseball star — with voters deciding which pair of candidates will proceed to the November ballot on Tuesday.

This race comes after Senator Laphonza Butler, who took over Ms Feinstein’s seat, decided against running for the full term. The state’s Senate primary race, set to happen on Super Tuesday, will determine which two candidates will advance to the November election. Voters will see all candidates on the same ballot, regardless of party.

The candidates include Democrats Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, and Barbara Lee, all currently serving in Congress, and Republican Steve Garvey, a former major league baseball player. Businessman and attorney Eric Early is also standing as a Republican.

According to polling, approximately 40 per cent of primary voters in North Carolina describe themselves as part of the Make America Great Again movement, as do approximately one-third of primary voters in Virginia.

The corresponding numbers for other primary states are 46 per cent in Iowa, 41 per cent in South Carolina, and approximately one-third in New Hampshire.

In addition, nearly two-thirds of Republican North Carolina primary voters say they would still consider Donald Trump fit for the presidency if he was convicted of a crime. In Virginia, the figure was just over half.

Eric Garcia gives his take on today’s elections:

We’re finally here! Super Tuesday, the March Madness of presidential primaries. Except in this case, we know that Donald Trump and Joe Biden – the respective number one seeds in their parties – will win the whole thing. Tonight, 15 states, and American Samoa, will hold their primaries.

Despite Nikki Haley’s insistence that she is in the race to win it, she will face an avalanche of closed-primary states such as California and Oklahoma and states with heavy Maga contingents like Texas, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas. On the Democratic side, while some states have “uncommitted” on their ballot, don’t expect as high numbers as Michigan saw as a protest against Joe Biden’s support for Israel.

Regardless of how November turns out, the 2024 campaign will almost certainly be the final campaign for Trump, 77, and Biden, 81. Both men have made their marks on their parties: Biden as a Senator for 36 years, a vice president and now president; while Trump harnessed the power of white grievance about immigration to take over the Republican Party and in turn made it more attractive to non-college-educated voters white and non-white alike.

But either way, both men will soon exit the political arena and elected officials in their parties will either stay on the trail they blazed or move in a different direction. These are the three major races to watch on Super Tuesday that could dictate the future of the Republican and Democratic Parties.