Voters flocked to polling stations in 15 states across the United States on Tuesday to cast their ballots in presidential primary elections, also called "Super Tuesday."
States where both Republicans and Democrats will cast ballots include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. Citizens in American Samoa will also vote.
The primary election process, which started this January in Iowa, is where Democratic and Republican party candidates compete to become their party's presidential contender and is set to officially end on June 8, though the winners are expected to be crowned long before that.
The parties’ presidential candidates will be officially chosen at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 15-18 and at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19-22.
Super Tuesday, the day the largest number of states hold their primaries, has been a pivotal day in American politics since the 1984 presidential elections.
Super Tuesday will allocate more than one-third of the total delegates up for grabs in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries.
With the Democratic Party having already determined Joe Biden's candidacy, attention this year is focused on the Republican Party and its leading contender, Donald Trump.
The former president is expected to emerge from Super Tuesday with a comfortable and decisive victory over his only remaining rival, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. The outcome will likely solidify his position as Biden's opponent in the fall presidential election, set for Nov. 5.
Haley, a former U.N. ambassador under Trump, has faced mounting questions about how long she will continue her long-shot campaign, particularly after losing her home state of South Carolina 10 days ago.
"As much as everybody wants to go and push me out, I'm not ready to get out yet," she told Fox News in an interview.
Trump was leading Haley in every Super Tuesday state where public polling data was available, according to poll tracking website 538.
But Haley allies see a narrow window of opportunity to win states such as Virginia, Massachusetts and Vermont, which have more of the wealthy, college-educated voters who tend to support her candidacy.
Trump told Fox in a separate interview that his focus was on Biden, adding: "We're going to win every state tonight."
Julie Farnam, an Arlington resident in the U.S. state of Virginia, said the election this year, neither Trump nor Biden is "really energizing people.
"People have strong feelings about particularly Trump. But there's also maybe not everyone is super supportive, even on the Democratic side of Biden. And so it'll be a very interesting election," she said.
"There are concerns about his age, and I don't think those concerns are unfounded. Although Trump is only a couple of years younger than then Biden, Trump is a little bit more sparky in the way he interacts," she told Anadolu Agency (AA).
She voiced concern regarding the potential results of the election, saying the U.S. is "still in a very dark period."
"Particularly if Trump loses I don't see him conceding, I don't see him and his supporters accepting the results of the election and that will just create more insecurity or and then if I just worry about that, there will be violence again," Farnam added.
Larry Nelson, a retiree, said he does not like the way Biden has been leading the country and liked "the things that he did when he was a president before. So I think he'll make some significant changes. I think we'll move ahead."
"This primary season, I think it's pretty clear that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. I have my doubts about whether Biden will be the Democratic nominee and if he is the nominee, and as retains Harris's as vice presidential candidate, he will lose soundly," said Nelson.
