Trump wins in Massachusetts, CBS News projects

and take a look at this live look of former president Trump speaking at his Florida residence and Country Club maral Lago we're going to bring you highlights as soon as we have them from Donald Trump he's now picked up another win in the state of Massachusetts that is Trump's 11th win tonight dominating in the field over Nikki Haley we also talked to voters after they cast their ballots we also found that many of them feel angry about how things are going in this country so let's bring in our CB

S News elections and surveys executive director Anthony salvanto Anthony good to see you I know you have been pouring through all of the numbers and Trump has remade the Republican Party In His Image what are the numbers show tonight indeed good to see you Nora let me start with this because it's just so important to his voter base did Joe Biden win legitimately in 2020 I'll show you a North Carolina exit pole but it's typical of what we see Nation wide Republicans saying no three4 of Republican

s saying no they don't think Joe Biden won legitimately and what's important about this is that they have heard Donald Trump's unproven false claims about the 2020 election and that leads into this when we ask people in this case North Carolina is Donald Trump fit to be president even if convicted of a crime the Republican primary voters there are saying yes he is and the reason they feel that way is that they think that these charges against him are politically motivated and they think that he

had a legitimate claim to try to stay in office and so that underpins why they say yes even if he's convicted Norah and Anthony let me ask you about independence we know they are a larger part of the electorate more than 40% of the voters identify themselves as Independents um either of these candidates will have to win them in order to win in a general election what are we hearing from them tonight so two things one is look at the way that this has shifted from 2020 where Joe Biden performed we

ll one Independence and now our latest CBS News National polling in which Trump is up among them part of that is the economy that's a big part part of that is immigration that's a big part of this so this is obviously going to be a big part to watch and one thing I will add quickly is watch the Nikki Haley vote tonight because in the Republican primaries where Independents are coming in they are supporting Nikki Haley in larger numbers and she's going to argue even though she's not on track to g

et the nomination she's going to argue that that means Republicans are leaving votes on the table that she would be able to pick up those voters that Donald Trump cannot nor really interesting Anthony salvanto that's why we love those exit polls thank you so much let's bring in our strategist tonight Democratic strategist Joel Payne and Republican strategist Les Sanchez great to have both of you Joel let's talk first about President Biden he is facing the lowest approval ratings since Jimmy Cart

er at his term he is underwater when it comes to immigration the economy uh dealing with foreign policy in the Israel Hamas War what do Democrats need to do to shore up his support yeah nor one thing I've learned not to do is fight with polls or pollsters they are what they are they don't look great for the president I do think what he needs is a couple things one he needs pretty quick resolution of the situation in Gaza that is putting a lot of stress and strain on his Coalition a lot of the fa

llof you see in a lot of public polls even our CBS polls in Biden's Coalition is from traditional democratic constituencies young voters voters of color um obviously we had the recent Michigan uh Democratic primary we had a lot of Muslim American voters folks like that are making up the fallof in Biden's numbers and so he's got to bring those folks home he's really got to do a lot of Base persuasion he and his allies are going to have to lock down those folks before they go after Independents an

d moderates to get back to sea level this time around Joel thank you Leslie I want to ask you about we s talked about Joe Biden he has weaknesses Donald Trump has weaknesses to facing 91 indictments spread over four trials uh he's been ordered to pay more than a half a billion dollars in civil judgments against him yet he has had some of the best weeks of his campaign so far from the Supreme Court to really doing very well in all of these states tonight what does he need to do tonight does he ne

ed to unify the party I think you're can hear many Republicans hope that he does that that he's magnanimous or is basically extending an olive branch to those disenchanted voters that have supported Haley to this point if you look at her numbers and we talked heard you talking about independence a part of that is going to be Democrats who are jumping over crossing over Undeclared into Republican primaries but there is a highly conflicted group of particularly women in those Suburban areas who do

not like his character the chaos surrounding him or the CRI the the criminal legal uh cases that he has against him and that cross pressure is going to make it really difficult for him to gain that support unless he does some deliberate efforts to refocus them on the economy and On the Border those are both interesting points and of course we still have eight months to go before uh November thanks to both of you we also have CBS reporters spread across the country that are focusing on the key i

ssues and the races in their areas on this super Tuesday so let's get a check in starting with CBS News political campaign reporter toian small he's in North Carolina North Carolina was the only Battleground State voting today and party leaders tell me it's absolutely in play in November why because it's common place to see single digigit margins of victory in Statewide races just like Donald Trump's 2020 win here where he beat Joe Biden by just over 1 percentage point this is a purple State and

it's also known to split tickets that same year voters elected a Democrat Roy Cooper for governor a republican Mark Robinson for lieutenant governor and a Democrat Josh Stein for attorney general Stein and Robinson will now face off in a general election gubernatorial contest in November so the takeaway here is the convention of wisdom of a Down ballot effect on either side might not apply when North Carolinians tend to have a swing state of mind with how super Tuesday is going up in the Northe

ast John K is in Boston good evening if there's any state voting tonight that ought to be fertile ground for Nikki Haley it's Massachusetts famous for electing moderate Republicans like former Governor Charlie Baker a prominent never Trumper who now heads the NCAA Haley staged her big local rally this past weekend in NM a Boston suburb that was Baker's birthplace but it's telling that Baker was essentially chased out of the Massachusetts GOP by Trump supporters for whom any Trump critic is a rhi

no Republican in name only Haley faces the same fate tonight in a state where these days the soil can't seem to sustain moderate republicanism any better than anywhere else now it's over to Caroline Cummings in Minneapolis building off momentum in Michigan there was also an effort in Minnesota to get people to vote uncommitted instead of President Joe Biden as a way to protest the Israel Hamas war and put political pressure on the White House to call for a permanent ceasefire but unlike Michigan

activists here tell me that they didn't set any turnout targets so any votes they would consider a win but the real Victory they say is if President Biden gets the message and they hope a national effort will deliver it to him loud and clear my colleague Jack fank in Dallas has an update from Texas thanks Caroline our big race is for US Senate North Texas congressman Colin alred leads a crowded Democratic Primary in the polls and may win outright and avoid a runoff his biggest competitor is sta

te senator Rolan Gutierrez of San Antonio a progressive Democrat who was the most outspoken State lawmaker for gun restrictions after the tragedy in Uvalde Allred is more moderate and he's raised more money than anyone including Republican incumbent Ted Cruz who's seeking a third term while Cruz won a very close race in 2018 analysts say it's going to to be an uphill climb for a Democrat to unseat him this year border security is the top issue in Texas and every Republican is running on it this

year but not Democrats now let's check in with Gary Dietrich in Sacramento with a look at what's happening in California here two significant items of note first in the presidential race where the California GOP changed its delegate assignment rules last summer such that any candidate that gets 50% of the vote plus one takes all of the state's GOP delegates that thought to benefit Donald Trump and also placed the California Republican party in an even more prominent role nationally and secondly

our US Senate race where to the surprise of many a poll last Friday showed that Republican Steve Garvey had taken the lead in the race how does that happen you ask in a deep blue State well because his chief Democratic rival congressman Adam Schiff has spent heavily promoting garvey's candidacy to the Republican base why well because Schiff believes it'll be much easier to defeat a republican come November Nora thank you very much let's take one more look at the map tonight because Trump has won

11 states at this hour and is expected to do well that's tight in Vermont but other than that he is expected to almost have a clean sweep tonight and John Dickerson that's virtually unprecedented he's dominated not only this race which has basically been his since the beginning but think about what he's done to the Republican party uh since 2015 he has remade an entire party made not only Chang positions on things like trade support for Russia personal character as as a either a help or a hindr

ance to a nomination he changed all of these individual ideas within the Republican party but he's now made support for him on a number of loyalty tests the sign of whether you are a good Republican or not that dominance overall party is something that's extraordinary never seen before and he's about to become dominant over the Republican National Committee Rona McDaniel will be stepping down at the end of the week he will install uh his own candidate including his daughter-in-law they have said

they will not use those RNC funds for legal bills but that could always change it just because Donald Trump says something doesn't mean that that's always true he follows through on that so what does that say then about Donald Trump's remaking of the Republican Party well I think I mean it says it's it's thorough but going back to Bob's earlier point about all these changes in these individual states making them win or take all that in part was the result of spade work done by the Trump forces

which showed that he knew how to do that delicate inside game work which in 2016 he didn't do he just blundered in and won everything but in this case he's got some tactical success and that's got to be something that the Biden people worry about and yet they've done a poor job of raising money thus far they've had trouble Trump has had trouble raising money correct and behind the scenes Trump is meeting with major donors some of the richest people in the world including Elon Musk in recent days

CBS News has confirmed he had a private meeting meeting with musk he's talking to donors and here's the thing about the Trump campaign right now he controls the party as John said but he does not control his time in just weeks he is going to have to sit in a New York courtroom as that criminal hush money payment to a porn star that trial begins March 25th all right which has only helped him in fundraising to dat yeah coming up we're going to talk about the issues that matter most to voters and

could decide this election you're watching super Tuesday right here here on [Music] CBS