WASHINGTON — After 146 days, 90 primaries and 17 caucuses in five U.S. territories, the District of Columbia and almost every state (Delaware canceled, remember?), the 2024 presidential primary calendar draws to a close with a handful of primaries on Tuesday and two Democratic caucuses on June 8.
Voters in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and Washington, D.C., will head to the polls Tuesday for both presidential and state primaries, while the very last votes of the presidential primary season will be cast four days later in Democratic contests in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Iowa will hold primaries on Tuesday for just state and local offices, having held its presidential contests in January and in March.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump, a Republican, have scored lopsided victories in every contest since securing their parties' nominations on March 12, but both presumptive nominees have also faced persistent protest votes in several contests along the way.
Biden will again face organized campaigns in multiple states to vote for ''uncommitted'' in protest of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. In New Jersey, ''uncommitted'' will appear on the ballot in most counties above the phrase, ''Justice For Palestine, Permanent Ceasefire Now!''
For Trump, Tuesday marks the first primaries since he became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes as a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to try to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn actor. It's also the first time since his chief rival for the 2024 nomination, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, announced that she would vote for him in November. Haley received a sizable share of the vote in some recent contests despite having ended her campaign in March. Her final appearance on a primary ballot will be in New Mexico.
Tuesday's other key races include the Republican primary to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester in Montana in what may be the most competitive contest to decide control of the chamber, as well as primaries to replace scandal-plagued Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in New Jersey, who faces a bribery trial.
Here are the upcoming contests at a glance:
DELEGATES AT STAKE (TUESDAY)