It’s official.
Last night, Joe Biden and Donald Trump both accumulated enough delegates to respectively clinch the Democratic and Republican Party’s nominations.
Decision Desk HQ made the call for President Biden at 7:00 pm EST sharp, when polls closed in Georgia. Biden ended up easily winning the Peach State with 95.2% of the vote. On top of that, the total turnout in the 2024 Democratic primary far exceeded the turnout of prior contests featuring incumbent Democratic Presidents.
Georgia Democratic Primary Turnout
1996: 95,103
2012: 139,273
2024: 288,776
Conversely, Donald Trump won Georgia’s GOP Primary with 84.5%, as Nikki Haley continued to receive a notable protest vote. While it’s unclear how much of her vote was mail-in and how much was cast on Election Day, she still managed to secure 77,769 votes. Most of these votes came from Atlanta, with Haley hitting 39.6% and 37.5% in DeKalb and Fulton Counties.
Additionally, the combined total of 587,361 votes was far under the 947,352 vote turnout when Trump ran unopposed in the 2020 Republican primary.
Meanwhile in Mississippi, Biden ran unopposed while Trump carried 92.6% of the vote. Out west, Trump eventually won the Hawaii Caucuses with 97%.
When Washington’s polls closed at 11:00 pm EST, Decision Desk HQ could make the call that Donald Trump had won enough delegates to become the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee.
Once again, Haley took a larger than expected chunk of the vote in the Evergreen State, winning 21.8%. Comparatively, Uncommitted won about 7.5% in the Democratic Party against Biden.
Viewership for Super Tuesday and the State of the Union
Now, let’s move on and examine some other measurements of national interest in the 2024 election. First off, the viewership for last week’s Super Tuesday contests plummeted compared to the 2020 and 2016 numbers. Nevertheless, we saw an even worse drop between 2008 and 2012, and the 2024 viewer numbers are still ahead of 2012’s.
Super Tuesday Election Night Viewership
2004: 2.31 million viewers (for CNN and Fox News)
2008: 24.316 million viewers (8.716 million for cable and 15.6 million for ABC, CBS and NBC)
2012: 8.106 million viewers (5.545 million for cable and 2.561 million for NBC)
2016: 23.561 million viewers (10.441 million for cable and 13.12 million for ABC, CBS and NBC)
2020: 19.086 million viewers (10.785 for cable and 8.301 for ABC, CBS and NBC)
2024: 11.672 million viewers (6.611 for cable and 5.061 for ABC, CBS and NBC)
Furthermore, last week’s State of the Union Address was the second-highest of Biden’s term; as the 2022 high was likely due to Russia invading Ukraine six days earlier.
President Biden State of the Union TV Ratings
2021: 26.9 million viewers
2022: 38.2 million viewers
2023: 27.3 million viewers
2024: 32.3 million viewers
While all of Donald Trump’s State of the Union addresses achieved higher TV viewership, Biden’s speech did accomplish its goal of motivating Democratic voters out of their Doom Loop (at least for the moment).
Looking Ahead to March 19th
Finally, let’s finish with a preview of next week’s contests.
Since the Presidential nominations are wrapped up, I’ll be shifting to the Ohio GOP Senate primary next week, where a trio of Republican candidates are looking to take on Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.
State Senator Matt Dolan and Secretary of State Frank LaRose are facing off with Donald Trump’s pick Bernie Moreno. Moreno’s the polling front-runner right now, but Dolan and LaRose are both close enough to still pull off an upset. In fact, a new Emerson Poll released this morning found Dolan in the lead. A pick-up here will, of course, be critical to the GOP’s hopes of winning back the Senate in November.
March 19th will also see primary contests in the open Congressional races in Ohio’s 6th Congressional District and California’s 20th Congressional District.
Make sure to track all these races and more Tuesday night here at Decision Desk HQ, and stay tuned for my day-after recap!