Follow along this evening as we bring you updates from across the Bay Area, California and the nation as votes are counted on Super Tuesday, the biggest election night before November.
____________________________________________________________________________
7:50 p.m. Trump says U.S. is “dying,” blasts Biden, doesn’t mention Haley in victory speech
Former President Donald Trump did not mention his main Republican rival, Nikki Haley, in remarks Tuesday night at his Mar-a-Lago estate after winning nearly all 15 states with Republican contests during Super Tuesday. Haley won only Vermont.
“The world is laughing at us,” Trump said to guests in the estate’s ballroom, slamming Biden on immigration, inflation and foreign policy.
“Our cities are being overrun with migrant crime and that’s Biden migrant crime,” Trump said.
“It’s a new category of crime and it’s violent, where they’ll stand in the middle of the street and have fistfights with police officers. And if they did that in their countries from where they came, they’d be killed instantly. Instantly.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” he added. “So the world is laughing at us. The world is taking advantage of us.”
Trump, who veered off script on a variety of topics, including the way oil is refined in Houston, called Biden “the worst president in the history of our country.”
________________________________________________________________________________
7:30 p.m. Biden says Super Tuesday results leave Americans with “clear choice”
After winning 14 of 15 states — except California — where polls are open for another 30 minutes — President Biden issued a statement Tuesday night saying the nation is facing “a clear choice” for president.
The statement:
“Tonight’s results leave the American people with a clear choice: Are we going to keep moving forward or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?
“Four years ago, I ran because of the existential threat Donald Trump posed to the America we all believe in. Since then, we’ve made enormous progress: 15 million jobs, wages rising faster than inflation, taking on Big Pharma and the gun lobby — and winning. But we have more to do.
“If Donald Trump returns to the White House, all of this progress is at risk. He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people. He is determined to destroy our democracy, rip away fundamental freedoms like the ability for women to make their own health care decisions, and pass another round of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy — and he’ll do or say anything to put himself in power.
“Today, millions of voters across the country made their voices heard — showing that they are ready to fight back against Donald Trump’s extreme plan to take us backwards.
“My message to the country is this: Every generation of Americans will face a moment when it has to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights. To every Democrat, Republican, and independent who believes in a free and fair America: This is our moment. This is our fight. Together, we will win.”
________________________________________________________________________________
6:30 p.m. Haley loses Colorado, one of her best hopes, as Trump sweep continues
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley entered Super Tuesday needing some wins to reassure her donors and supporters that she has a viable path to the Republican nomination.
So far, she’s come up empty-handed. Donald Trump has won the Colorado primary, according to the Associated Press. Many analysts considered Colorado, along with Virginia, Massachusetts and Vermont, to be the states she had the best chances to capture. Trump has already won three of them tonight, however, with only Vermont still too close to call.
Haley has committed to staying in the race through Super Tuesday.
“Candidates drop out when their donors tell them to,” Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told the Bay Area News Group on Monday. “Haley will likely lose all or almost all the contests on Super Tuesday. I doubt her donors will support her campaign for much longer.”
If she drops out, the $64,000 question will be: After bashing Trump for months, will she do an about face and endorse him to unify the party? Will she quit and endorse nobody? Could she endorse Biden or vote for him as other Republicans such as former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Cindy McCain, and former Hewlett Packard CEO and Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina did in 2020?
Or might she stay in the race all the way to the Republican convention in July in Milwaukee, hoping that Trump’s poll numbers collapse in the next four months due to being convicted of a crime or suffering a health problem?
__________________________________________________________________________________
6:00 p.m. North Carolina Republicans nominate conspiracy theorist for governor
In the 2020 presidential race, Donald Trump narrowly eked out a win in North Carolina, beating Joe Biden by 49.9% to 48.6% — a victory of just 74,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast.
Democrats have tried hard to win the Tarheel State and its 16 electoral votes — more than Michigan, Wisconsin or Arizona. But they have only done it once in the past 11 presidential elections back to 1980, in 2008 when President Obama won the state.
Tonight, their chances jumped considerably. The state’s lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, won the Republican nomination for governor. Robinson has a history of bizarre statements and has embraced numerous conspiracy theories.
On Facebook, he appeared to deny the Holocaust when he wrote in 2017: “This foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.” Robinson, who is Black, has called Obama “a worthless, anti-American atheist” and claimed Michelle Obama is a man. He has said the the COVID pandemic was a “globalist conspiracy” to defeat Trump. After the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, Robinson wrote on social media that “Homosexuality is STILL an abominable sin and I WILL NOT join in ‘celebrating gay pride.’” He has said he opposes abortion in all cases.
Trump endorsed Robinson over the weekend, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Robinson will face Democrat Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general, in the November election to succeed Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who is term-limited out.
Although North Carolina is a Southern state, Biden won in 2020 by strong margins in urban areas such as Durham, Chapel Hill, and Charlotte, in neighborhoods with large number of technology workers, and by landslides around the University of North Carolina and other college precincts.
If moderate Republican voters, particularly women, and independents stay home, or vote Democratic over concerns about Robinson becoming governor, Democrats hope, it could give Biden a chance to win the state, which is essential for Trump to win back the White House.
____________________________________________________________________________________
5:00 p.m. Biden steams toward nomination, piling up delegates
President Biden has had some tough travails in recent months with up-and-down polling, an Israel-Hamas war, and House Republicans’ refusal to provide funding to Ukraine as it attempts to hold off Russia’s invasion. But one thing the incumbent president hasn’t had that some other presidents did: A difficult primary challenge from his own party.
With only token opposition from New Age author Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minnesota, Biden continued cruising toward the Democratic nomination Tuesday night. So far, he has won primaries in North Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, Tennessee, and the Iowa caucus, whose results were also released.
At this point, Biden has 411 pledged delegates, and needs 1,968 to win. His opponent, Donald Trump, has 348 delegates, to Nikki Haley’s 43, with 1,215 needed to win the Republican nomination.
The earliest each can lock up the nomination is March 12 for Trump and March 19 for Biden. In other words, barring catastrophic scandal or major health problems, the November presidential race will be a rematch of 2020: Biden vs. Trump.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Trump wins Virginia in major setback for Haley
4:30 p.m.: Former President Donald Trump has won the Republican primary in Virginia, according to the Associated Press. Trump’s main challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, was hoping for a win today in Vermont, Virginia, and Colorado to keep her candidacy viable.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
There’s still time to vote!
4:00 p.m.: So you left it to the last minute but still want to vote? Fear not. Polls are open in California until 8 p.m. tonight, and you can still vote several ways:
1) Take your ballot to a post office and get it postmarked by today, March 5. All ballots postmarked by Election Day must be counted under California law, as long as they are received by election officials no later than seven days after Election Day.
2) To vote in person, even if you aren’t registered yet, find your polling place at the Secretary of State’s website by entering your address. As long as you are in line by 7:59 p.m., you will be allowed to vote.
3) Have a ballot and want to drop it off at a county drop-off box? Here’s a list of where those are. They must be dropped off by 8:00 p.m. tonight.
You may also check your voter registration status online at https://voterstatus.sos.ca.gov.