By the time the evening ends — or when the vote count finishes — Donald Trump should have enough delegates to win the GOP presidential nomination on the first ballot. There may not be a lot of suspense in the race any longer, since Nikki Haley suspended the last campaign competing against the former president and clear incumbent in the Republican field. But the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings, as Yogi Berra never actually said. (It came from Texas A&M basketball announcer Ralph Carpenter; Berra offered the more Yogi-esque tautology, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”)
At the moment, Trump only needs 139 more delegates to clinch the nomination. Four states go to the polls today with 161 Republican delegates at stake: Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington state. GIven that none of these are a bastion of Haley sentiment — not even South Carolina turned out to be a Haley bastion — Trump should easily break the tape at the finish line in this mini-Super Tuesday.
For that matter, so should Joe Biden:
Biden was 113 delegates shy of the 1,968 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination as of Monday, according to Edison. Tuesday’s contests in Georgia, Mississippi, Washington state, the Northern Mariana Islands and for Democrats living abroad will allocate 254 additional delegates.
Unlike on Super Tuesday, there aren’t a lot of races involving high-stakes nominations for Congress or the Senate, or for the gubernatorial ranks for that matter either. Roger Wicker is running again for his Senate seat in Mississippi, and is expected to sail to victory. On the Democrat side, Ty Pinkins faces off against … “write-ins.” If Pinkins can’t prevail in that primary, best of luck running against a popular incumbent in Wicker in a deep-red state like Mississippi. They also have House primaries that may be worth watching for the live results, but will be of limited interest otherwise.
By the way, there’s one wrinkle tonight — Hawaii uses caucuses rather than a primary, and Democrats are apparently not caucusing this evening. Turnout should be interesting in that caucus, but even more so, it should be the metric to which we pay the closest attention in all four states. Thus far, the GOP has consistently turned out more voters than Democrats. If that continues tonight, especially in Georgia, then Democrats have something to really worry about.
Georgia’s polls will close first at 7 pm ET. Our partners at Decision Desk HQ will provide live results as precincts begin reporting, and will call races with more precision and speed than their MSM competitors.