Does Super Tuesday even matter anymore?

On Tuesday, 15 states and one US territory will hold primary contests to select delegates to the Republican and Democratic presidential nominating conventions that will take place this summer.

The states, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia — plus territory American Samoa — represent the biggest one-day potential delegate haul for any of the candidates seeking their respective parties’ nominations this year.

But unlike many election years, the results that will be reported this year are largely pre-ordained.

On the Democratic side, there is an incumbent president in office, Joe Biden. And because he’s running for re-election, he has won the vast majority of delegates in each of the nominating contests that have taken place thus far, with challengers Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson and (in at least one state) “uncommitted” coming in far behind.

That result is expected to be repeated on Tuesday, with President Biden easily retaining his lead in committed delegates for this summer’s Democratic convention in Chicago.

The Republican contest has been no less lopsided, with former president Donald Trump running as a de facto incumbent against a GOP field that has shrunk to include just one challenger, former South Carolina governor — and ex-US Ambassador to the United Nations — Nikki Haley.

Ms Haley, who Mr Trump once encouraged to get into the race against him, has repeatedly rebuffed Mr Trump’s calls for his former appointee to drop out and endorse him, just as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and the other former 2024 GOP challengers have done save for ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie and ex-Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson.

She has, however, racked up a single primary victory in the small Republican contest held in Washington, DC this past weekend, making her the first Republican woman to win a presidential primary.

But the fact remains that Ms Haley lacks a realistic path to victory, with Republican voters in most states giving her only 40 per cent of votes at best.

Mr Biden is similarly expected to top the vote totals in every Democratic contest being held on Tuesday, which includes the aforementioned states and territory as well as the Northern Mariana Islands, plus a mail-in vote contest in Iowa and votes from Democrats living abroad.

The last time a Democratic president faced a competitive primary fight was the 1980 election cycle, when then-Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy mounted an insurgent bid against then-president Jimmy Carter.

Kennedy didn’t come very close to winning the nomination, but when Mr Carter ultimately lost to Ronald Reagan, the Massachusetts senator’s candidacy was cited as having fatally weakened the Carter re-election effort.

The 46th president’s campaign isn’t concerned about an intra-party challenge, considering Mr Phillips and Ms Williamson’s lack of strength in previous contests, but Mr Biden may face a problem in the form of uncommitted voters or voters who use the challengers as protest votes to express displeasure over his policies towards Israel.

Either way, he is expected to emerge undefeated from the Super Tuesday contests, setting up the rematch with Mr Trump that a significant portion of Americans don’t want but are getting anyway.