What to watch for on Super Tuesday

CNN —

The beginning of the end of the 2024 presidential primaries starts Tuesday, when President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are expected to all but clinch a rematch of their 2020 contest eight months ahead of the November general election.

There will be contests in 16 states on this year’s Super Tuesday, with voters going to the polls in every time zone in the continental US, from Alaska and California to Colorado, Minnesota and North Carolina. By the time it’s done, Biden and Trump are both expected to have racked up large numbers of delegates and showdowns will be in place for critical congressional seats and powerful governor’s mansions.

A man walks past an early voting polling site on February 20 in San Antonio, Texas.

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The primaries will also offer additional insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the leading candidates as big-dollar campaigns test their standing with key pieces of the electorate across a country that appears as divided as ever. Inside the parties, long-simmering ideological battles will play out in typically low-turnout, down-ballot primaries.

For former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining hurdle to his third GOP presidential nomination, Tuesday marks what is likely her final opportunity to upend the race and slow Trump.

Down the ticket, the race to fill the California Senate seat held for decades by the late Dianne Feinstein will be cut down to a final pair of hopefuls, while a newly drawn district in Alabama, more friendly to Democrats (by court order), is expected to choose its new representative. And in North Carolina, the most hotly contested governor’s race of the year will formally lock in