With less excitement than in other primary elections, Super Tuesday arrives, the key date in the race towards the nomination for the presidency. It is the day in which more States vote and in which a greater number of delegates are awarded who will attend the conventions of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the summer, in which the candidates who opt to win the elections of the Next November 5th. At stake are around a third of the delegates of either party or, in other words, around two-thirds of those needed to win the nomination. The polls give Joe Biden winners by a wide margin among the Democrats and Donald Trump among the Republicans, but this week they still cannot mathematically achieve the required majority.
What is Super Tuesday?
Super Tuesday is the United States presidential primary election day, usually held in February or March, when the largest number of states hold primary elections and caucus. About a third of all delegates to presidential nominating conventions can be won on Super Tuesday, more than any other day. Historically, Super Tuesday results are a clear indicator of each political party’s potential presidential candidate. Since 1988, Super Tuesday winners have always been nominated.
How many states vote on Super Tuesday?
The figure has varied from year to year. In 1996, only seven States coincided, while in 2008 the record was broken, with 24 States between the two parties, which is why it was also called Gigamartes or Tsunami Tuesday. This time, voters from both parties have an appointment in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. In addition to those 14 States, in the Republican case there are caucus in Alaska, and in the Democratic one, the results of Iowa (which has been voting exclusively by mail since January 12) are revealed and primaries are also held in the territory of American Samoa.
Can Trump win the nomination now?
At the Republican National Convention from July 15 to 19 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) there are a total of 2,429 delegates. To secure the nomination, Trump needs 1,215 delegates. He arrives with about 270 and on Tuesday there are 874 at stake, so at least he will have to wait for the 161 delegates up for grabs on March 12, when voting takes place in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and the State of Washington.
Can Biden win the nomination now?
The Democratic convention will be held from August 19 to 22 at the United Center in Chicago (Illinois). It will have a total of about 4,540 delegates and superdelegates (they depend mainly on their position), but in the first vote there will be 3,934 delegates. Biden must get 1,968 pledged delegates. He has 206 of the 208 that have been awarded and this Tuesday 1,420 are assigned. As the Democratic calendar is somewhat behind the Republican one, it will not be able to exceed the required threshold until March 19 (when Arizona, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio vote), even if it continues to win in all the States.
How are delegates assigned?
Each state has its own rules, but in the Republican primaries several give all the delegates to the winner if it exceeds 50% (which happens almost by definition when there are only two candidates for practical purposes). Republicans use this method to decide the primaries early so that the party base can unite forces around a candidate, something that this time has happened in advance. Among them is California, the State that sends the most delegates to the convention (169). In Texas (161) the system is also majority, although partly by state and partly by districts. The next states that allocate the most Republican delegates are North Carolina (74), Tennessee (58), Alabama (50) and Virginia (48). Democrats prefer to award delegates proportionally, but Biden has no real alternatives in front of him.
Who can vote?
Again, each State has its own rules. There are those that only allow registered voters in each party to participate (closed primaries), those that allow anyone to vote (open primaries) and those that have intermediate systems (hybrid primaries).
What do the surveys say?
There are no polls on the Democratic primaries because Biden—in practice—has no rival. And according to Republican polls, neither does Trump. His advantage is overwhelming in almost all States. According to the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregator, in California his voting intention is 73% compared to Nikki Haley’s 19%. In Texas, from 78% to 14%. In North Carolina, 68%-23%. And the same thing happens in Tennessee (83%-15%) or Virginia (65%-17%). In many states there are not enough recent polls, but in all the available ones, Trump wins by a landslide. Nationally, his lead is 77% to 15%.
Have Super Tuesdays been as little contested as on this occasion?
This year is the exception. Super Tuesday has seen fierce battles, such as in the 2008 Democratic primaries, when Barack Obama won in 13 States and Hillary Clinton, in 10. The number of delegates showed a technical tie: 847 to 834. On the Republican side, with 21 States at stake, John McCain took nine States that year; Mitt Romney won seven, and Mike Huckabee won five. In 2016, there was also excitement in both games. In the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton won 7 states (486 delegates) to Sanders’ 4 (321 delegates). And in the Republican Party, Trump won in seven of the 11 States, but only won 256 of the 600 delegates in the running. In 2020, Biden won 10 states and won 726 delegates, but Bernie Sanders won four others, including California, and won a total of 505 delegates.
Has any other candidate presented himself after leaving office, like Trump now?
Trump is the first president to run after leaving office since Herbert Hoover tried unsuccessfully in 1940. If he wins the Republican nomination, he will be the first Republican to be nominated for president three separate times since Richard Nixon (nominated in 1960, 1968 and 1972), and the first person to be the Republican presidential nominee in three consecutive elections. If he were nominated and won, he would be the first non-consecutive-term president since Grover Cleveland, who won his second term in 1892.
What comes next?
On the Republican side, Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and the State of Washington vote on Mini-Tuesday on March 12, and a week later Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio vote. After that there will still be around twenty States left to vote, the last ones on June 4, but everything will already be decided. In the Democratic primaries, those same States vote on those same dates, with the exceptions of Hawaii, which votes in April, and Florida, which has canceled the primaries because Biden was the only candidate.
As of Super Tuesday, there will be 132 days left for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, 167 for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and 245 for the presidential election on November 5.
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