The Latest | Former Trump presidential campaign adviser advances in Texas

The Super Tuesday primaries are the largest voting day of the year in the United States aside from the November general election.

Voters in 16 states and one territory are choosing presidential nominees. Some states are also deciding who should run for governor, senator or district attorneys.

Party primaries, caucuses or presidential preference votes are being held in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.

Find AP’s full coverage of Super Tuesday 2024 at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Former Trump presidential campaign adviser advances in Texas

ROCKWALL, Texas — Katrina Pierson, a former Trump presidential campaign adviser, has advanced to a Republican primary runoff in Texas for a legislative seat in the Dallas suburbs.

Pierson’s opponent in the runoff — set for May 28 — for the Texas House seat is Rep. Justin Holland, who was one of dozens of Republicans who voted last year to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Trump ally.

It’s not the first time Pierson has run for office in Texas. She lost a run for Congress in 2014 before becoming a spokesperson for Trump’s presidential campaign.

Why are Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey advancing twice for the same California seat?

WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican former baseball player Steve Garvey are headed for a November election in California to decide who will fill the U.S. Senate seat held for three decades by the late Dianne Feinstein. But it’s not just one term.

The candidates are competing to serve out the remainder of Feinstein’s term between the November election and the January inauguration of a new senator. But they’re also running for her full six-year term.

The strange scenario came about because California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed someone to the seat after Feinstein’s death. Election rules require a special election to fill the last bit of that term.

Jason Palmer talks about his surprising win in American Samoa

WASHINGTON — Jason Palmer said he knows he’s a longshot for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“When I started this race, I knew there was a 99% chance that Joe Biden would win,” he told The Associated Press.

But the 52-year-old Baltimore investor still managed to win four delegates in American Samoa on Super Tuesday, denying President Joe Biden a victory there.

Palmer was attending an education conference in Washington when the results came in.

“I found out that I had won because my phone started blowing up with friends and campaign staffers texting me,” he said.

Haley’s campaign is ‘honored’ by the Super Tuesday support

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Nikki Haley’s national campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement Tuesday that the Republican candidate was honored to be the first GOP woman to win two presidential primary contests.

“Today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump,” Perez-Cubas said. “That is not the unity our party needs for success.”

Despite her win in Vermont on Tuesday and her primary win in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, Trump was notching more victories.

2 Democrats advance to runoff in Alabama’s redrawn 2nd District

WASHINGTON — Two Democrats advanced to a primary runoff election in Alabama’s newly-drawn 2nd Congressional District.

Anthony Daniels and Shomari Figures emerged from the crowded field Tuesday. The district is closely watched by Democrats as a potential pickup opportunity in the U.S. House.

Because no candidate garnered more than 50% of the vote, the race now advances a runoff between Daniels and Figures, which is set for April 16.

The new district was created after a federal court ordered Alabama redraw its congressional map to better represent Black voters, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court. The redrawn district includes parts of Montgomery and Mobile, as well as much of the region’s “Black Belt,” where a majority of the state’s Black population resides.

Trump and Biden head toward 2024 rematch

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have all but cemented a November rematch, and it’s increasing the pressure on Nikki Haley — Trump’s last major rival — to exit the Republican race.

Biden and Trump each won Texas, Alabama, California, Colorado, Maine, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota and Massachusetts. Biden also won the Democratic contests in Utah, Vermont and Iowa.

Haley won Vermont, but Trump carried other states that might have been favorable to her, such as Virginia and Maine. Those states have large swaths of moderate voters like those who have backed her in previous primaries.

Not enough states will have voted until later this month for Trump or Biden to formally become their parties’ presumptive nominees.

Israel-Hamas war has some Democrats voting ‘uncommitted’ in protest of Biden

LITTLETON, Colo. — President Joe Biden still faces a protest vote as some people are casting their ballots on Tuesday for “uncommitted” because of his support of Israel.

U.S. Air Force veteran Keira Havens, 40, said she backed “uncommitted” over Biden’s response to the conflict.

“This is the only tool I have to put pressure on them right now, I’m going to use it,” Havens said.

Marcus Casillas, 29, said the argument from other Democrats to vote for Biden because former President Donald Trump would be less supportive of Palestinians isn’t convincing.

“I firmly believe that in order for me to vote for someone, they need to earn the vote,” Casillas said. “I want to have belief in what I’m doing when I make that choice.”

Nikki Haley gets surprise win in Vermont’s Republican presidential primary

WASHINGTON — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley scored a surprise victory on Super Tuesday, upsetting Donald Trump to win Vermont.

However, that victory will do little to dent Trump’s primary dominance. The former president won 11 other states on Super Tuesday.

Haley is the last major rival to Trump standing in a once-crowded primary field. She increasingly has stepped up her attacks on the former president, arguing he will lose in November to President Joe Biden if he clinches the party’s nomination.

On the Democratic side, Biden also ran up the score with wins all around the country against only token primary opposition — all but cementing the long-expected November rematch between him and Trump.

Trump offers little celebration in victory speech at Mar-a-Lago

In a speech Tuesday evening at a victory party in Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump condemned Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, foreign policy and especially the U.S.-Mexico border.

But he offered little in the way of prescriptions during his 20-minute speech and instead ticked through moments in his administration, several of them more than five years ago.

“We’re going to make America great again, greater than ever before,” he said.

Biden’s Super Tuesday focus is on Trump

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is choosing not to revel in his Super Tuesday nomination wins, instead releasing a statement telling Americans it is time to defend democracy.

“My message to the country is this,” Biden said in a written statement from his campaign. “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.”

Biden is casting Republican Donald Trump as someone willing to reverse his policies on taxes and improved affordability for prescription drugs. But, mostly, the written statement was an admonition to voters about Trump’s time in office and that the former president cares about “revenge and retribution, not the American people.”

Haley’s campaign pushed to the brink after Super Tuesday trouncing

NEW YORK — Nikki Haley has suffered a string of significant losses Tuesday, and it’s prompting allies to believe the end of her 2024 presidential campaign may be near.

Haley didn’t make any public statements as officials counted ballots coast-to-coast late into the night. Privately, her team expected Republican rival Donald Trump to win almost every one of the evening’s contests, despite their best efforts to stop him. Haley spent the night huddled with staff watching returns near her South Carolina home.

Trump is expected to win the necessary 1,215 delegates to become the GOP’s presumptive nominee later this month.

Trump is getting primary wins, but criminal cases still loom large

WASHINGTON — The criminal charges against former President Donald Trump have done nothing to hurt his appeal with most Republican voters.

Trump is collecting wins that put him closer to the GOP nomination and a likely 2020 rematch against President Joe Biden. But he’s still got an array of looming court cases, including one based on accusations he mishandled classified material and another on his false claims about winning the 2020 election. Jury selection in his New York hush-money trial will begin March 25.

AP VoteCast found that 74% of South Carolina primary voters said the criminal charges are a political attempt to undermine Trump. Still, a third of Republican voters in that state also said they think he did something illegal in at least one of the cases against him.

North Carolina governor nominees play up their differences in victory speeches

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Democratic and Republican nominees for North Carolina governor are playing up their differences in Tuesday speeches to supporters.

Josh Stein is the Democrat and the state’s current attorney general. Mark Robinson, the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, is a former factory worker who has the endorsement of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

“Today we took an important first step, but we must be clear-eyed about the stakes of this election,” Stein said in a victory speech to supporters in Raleigh. “We’re at a crossroads,” he said. He told supporters Robinson’s vision for the state was “bleak and divisive.”

Robinson described himself as an underdog.

“The differences could not be more clear,” Robinson said at a Greensboro victory party. “I’m sure the people of North Carolina will make the right choice.”

Utah voters planning for a GOP caucus with polite discourse and food

BOUNTIFUL, Utah — As voters in other states across the Mountain West line up at the polls on Tuesday, Utah Republicans are doing things differently.

Thousands of voters are flooding into Millcreek Junior High School, one of 2,300 neighborhood caucus locations around the state where residents will debate the candidates as a group before casting votes in a preference poll. Voters are bringing plates of food to eat during the coming debates.

“We want to have good, strong political discourse tonight,” said Lisa Fifield, the Bountiful, Utah, caucus director.

Utah’s 40 delegates will be distributed proportionally between the candidates unless one receives over 50% of the vote, which would earn them all of the state’s delegates.

Biden loses in American Samoa, a US territory in the South Pacific

WASHINGTON — Jason Palmer defeated President Joe Biden in American Samoa, a tiny U.S. territory in the South Pacific.

According to the local Democratic Party, Palmer won 51 votes and Biden won 40. There were only six delegates up for grabs there in a contest that requires nearly 2,000, but it’s still a notable setback for an incumbent president. Palmer is a Baltimore-based investor.

This isn’t the first time that American Samoa has turned up surprising results in a primary. During the 2020 Democratic race, it was the only contest won by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor.

Only elected challenger to Biden laughs off losses in states’ Democratic primaries Tuesday

WASHINGTON — Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, the only elected Democrat to challenge President Joe Biden in their party’s primary, isn’t coming close to winning anywhere on Tuesday — but he’s trying not to let it get him down.

“Congratulations to Joe Biden, Uncommitted, Marianne Williamson, and Nikki Haley for demonstrating more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me,” Phillips posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Phillips has remained in the race despite providing only token opposition to Biden and no real chance of challenging him nationally. His home state of Minnesota is among those holding a Democratic primary on Super Tuesday — but he isn’t expected to win there, either.

The Associated Press