On Mar. 5, Super Tuesday (the day in which the greatest number of states hold their primary elections), President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump took one step closer to securing their respective party’s nomination. After ballots were cast, both Biden and Trump only needed about 150 additional delegates to win their nominations, which happened on March 12.

Biden won the Democratic primary in all 15 states that voted on Super Tuesday, securing 1350 delegates in the process. Delegates are party leaders who formally nominate the party’s candidate at the party’s convention in the summer. Due to the decisive Biden victories, his main challenger, Congressman Dean Phillips, suspended his campaign for president on Mar. 6 and endorsed the president. The only loss of the night for Biden came in the caucus of American Samoa to Jason Palmer. Although Biden was defeated on the island of approximately 50,000 people, Palmer only gained four delegates.

Trump emerged victorious in the Republican primary in 14 out of the 15, securing 793 of the 865 delegates available. The former president lost Vermont to Nikki Haley, who officially dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination on Mar. 6. Even though many expected Trump to sweep the Super Tuesday primaries, losing Vermont meant little as the state only offers 17 delegates and has not gone red in a general election since 1988. As previously stated, Haley suspended her campaign for president but did not endorse the former president. 

The biggest question for many voters is Biden’s age as he will turn 82 in November. During his State of the Union Address on Mar. 7, Biden delivered an uncharacteristically fiery and energized speech. While the speech may have silenced some questions regarding the president’s age, it came across as shouting, still had some embarrassing gaffs and was not very unifying for an election year. 

The heaviest questions for many voters regarding Trump have been the handful of legal battles he is involved with that are to be decided before the election. Nevertheless, he had another victory in addition to Super Tuesday. On Mar. 4, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously reversed the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to remove his name from the GOP primary ballot. 

For Biden to get reelected he needs the economy, specifically inflation levels, to do better than they have during the first three years of his presidency. While inflation dropped in 2023 from 9% to about 3.5%, showing some economic promise for Biden, however many American consumers still feel squeezed at both the grocery store and the gas pump. In a recent ABC News poll, 74% of voters said that the economy was very important to them. Many of these voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy which could prove disastrous at the ballot box in November.

A victory for Trump rests on his ability to unify the Republican Party. A recent AP News poll found that about a quarter of Haley voters in the South Carolina primary said they would refuse to vote for Trump if he was the nominee. Polls from other states reflect these sentiments, which points to problems for the former president in the general election. 

The independent campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a possible fourth candidate from the No Labels Party could make the 2024 election radically different from 2020. While it is extremely unlikely that a third-party candidate will win, they could pull enough votes away from either Biden or Trump to impact the results of the election. 

Although a lot can happen between now and when Biden and Trump formally accept their party’s nomination this summer, it appears that these two candidates will have a rematch of the 2020 election. Ultimately on Nov. 5, voters will be faced broadly with the question of whether their lives were better under Biden or Trump and that candidate will likely win the election as a result.