Does Super Tuesday even matter anymore?

On Tuesday, 15 states and one US territory will hold primary contests to select delegates to the Republican and Democratic presidential nominating conventions that will take place this summer.

The states, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia — plus territory American Samoa — represent the biggest one-day potential delegate haul for any of the candidates seeking their respective parties’ nominations this year.

But unlike many election years, the results that will be reported this year are largely pre-ordained.

On the Democratic side, there is an incumbent president in office, Joe Biden. And because he’s running for re-election, he has won the vast majority of delegates in each of the nominating contests that have taken place thus far, with challengers Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson and (in at least one state) “uncommitted” coming in far behind.

That result is expected to be repeated on Tuesday, with President Biden easily retaining his lead in committed delegates for this summer’s Democratic convention in Chicago.

The Republican contest has been no less lopsided, with former president Donald Trump running as a de facto incumbent against a GOP field that has shrunk to include just one challenger, former South Carolina governor — and ex-US Ambassador to the United Nations — Nikki Haley.

Ms Haley, who Mr Trump once encouraged to get into the race against him, has repeatedly rebuffed Mr Trump’s calls for his former appointee to drop out and endorse him, just as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and the other former 2024 GOP challengers have done