ATLANTA — Nikki Haley is suspending her campaign on Wednesday following her defeats in the Super Tuesday primary states, according to Associated Press reporting. Georgia is among the states that have yet to vote in the primaries, and voters may be wondering -- does the primary still happen here?
The short answer is yes. Even though the 2024 race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is effectively set, Georgia and other states still conduct their primary elections. Georgia has already been conducting early voting since Feb. 19 -- the ballot has long been set (the GOP ballot features several candidates who long ago suspended their campaigns, such as Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott) and votes have already been cast.
(Very importantly, Georgia voters should know that we vote again on May 21 in primaries for important non-presidential races such as U.S. Congress and state Senate and House seats.)
This year is also far from the first when the primary races were effectively long over before all states had voted.
As just one example, in the 2004 Democratic primary John Kerry was effectively the nominee after Super Tuesday. He was acknowledged as the nominee on March 11, with numerous states still to go in their primaries.
Those states still voted -- in the case of New Jersey, who went last, just Kerry and one other candidate (Dennis Kucinich, who kept longshot his campaign going) were on the ballot by that point.
Here in 2024, the other Republican candidates have all largely ended their campaigns while on the Democratic side, longshot candidates Dean Phillips and Jason Palmer have continued on, much like Kucinich 20 years ago. Palmer actually campaigned heavily in American Samoa and pulled out a tie with Biden in the caucus there, where roughly 90 people voted, on Super Tuesday.
So even though the races are basically over -- yes, the voting still goes on, both in Georgia and elsewhere.
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