AP Decision Notes: What to expect in the March 12 presidential contests

WASHINGTON (AP) — Super Tuesday put former President Donald Trump within reach of clinching his third consecutive Republican presidential nomination, but it may be Republican voters in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington who put him over the top.

The four states have a combined 161 delegates at stake on Tuesday, and Trump will need to win the lion’s share of them in order to become the presumptive nominee. But with his main rival for the nomination, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, no longer in the race, there are no remaining obstacles in his way.

President Joe Biden also won hundreds of delegates on Super Tuesday, but because of the way the Democratic nomination calendar and process is structured, the earliest he can win the delegates he’ll need to clinch renomination is a week later on March 19. Biden will be on the primary ballots in three states on Tuesday, Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. The date will also mark the conclusion of party-run contests in the Northern Mariana Islands and Democrats Abroad, an organization of Democratic U.S. citizens who live in other countries. Democrats Abroad functions like a state for the purposes of the presidential nomination process.

Biden will face self-help author Marianne Williamson in four contests. He will also face a rematch with Democrat Jason Palmer in the Northern Marianas primary. Palmer unexpectedly won a 91-person vote in American Samoa on Super Tuesday, picking up three delegates along the way. “Uncommitted” has also won delegates in Michigan and Minnesota, and will be on the ballot Tuesday in Washington.

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