4 takeaways from Super Tuesday

One should always be prepared for a day of surprises in politics. Super Tuesday this year wasn't one of them.

Voting went pretty much as expected on the most expansive election day of the primaries. Both President Biden and former President Donald Trump dominated across the country and are all but assured of a rematch against each other, however unpopular it may be with voters.

That is even more certain in the morning light, as Nikki Haley suspended her campaign for president. On Tuesday, in the wake of the results, her campaign released a statement cautioning "there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump" and called on the party to address those concerns.

But, in a GOP primary, there aren't enough of those voters, and Trump could clinch the GOP nomination as soon as next Tuesday.

1. Barring something extraordinary happening, it's clear Trump is going to be the GOP nominee, if that hadn't been clear already.

It's been apparent for some time that the country was headed for a Biden-Trump rematch, but Super Tuesday has all but assured that. Trump dominated across the country Tuesday. Haley won only in Vermont, which has only 17 delegates of the 874 at stake in the 15 states that voted in GOP contests on Super Tuesday.

Trump went into Super Tuesday with about a little more than a 200-delegate lead. As of Tuesday night, with more delegates left to allocate, Trump led by about 700. That makes it nearly impossible for Haley to catch up. The only question now is what does Haley do?

2. Haley exposed Trump's weakness with independents, but what will they do now?

Haley won independents who voted in the Republican primaries in state after state this year, but there