[ad_1]
Eric Gay/AP
A man walks past an early voting polling place in San Antonio, Texas, on February 20.
A version of this article appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter.Sign up for free to receive it in your inbox here.
CNN
—
This is an important new phase in the presidential primary, with early campaigning over and voters in multiple states voting in primaries scheduled to take place on the same day.
The day is known as “Super Tuesday,” and it’s an important day even though neither Democratic President Joe Biden nor former President Donald Trump have had to compete this year. Tuesday’s primary may be the last chance for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s lackluster and lackluster effort to challenge Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.
Instead of a single primary or caucus, Super Tuesday bundles together 15 Republican races and 16 Democratic races across the country.
More than a third of Republican delegates are at risk, along with a similarly large number of Democratic delegates. Mr. Biden is undefeated in this year’s primaries, while Mr. Trump has only one loss.
A large sample of the country – red states and blue states in the North, South, East and West – hold contests on Super Tuesday.
The primary contests at issue include the first three states of the alphabet that any elementary school student should recognize: Alabama, Alaska (republican-leaning), and Arkansas. Additionally, there is California and Colorado. Maine, Massachusetts, and Minnesota. North Carolina; Oklahoma; Tennessee and Texas. Utah; and Vermont and Virginia.
Tuesday also marks the end of the Democratic mail-in presidential election process in Iowa and the end of the Democratic caucus in American Samoa.
How did Trump and Biden perform on previous Super Tuesdays?
Super Tuesday in 2016 was the moment when Trump really took control of the Republican primary. Trump won seven of the 11 contests that day, but lost the biggest prize, Texas. In contrast to this year, when Trump won almost every election before Super Tuesday and the delegate lead over Haley widened, 2016 was still an active delegate race. Ta.
In 2020, Biden won 10 of 14 Super Tuesday votes. He has not faced strong competition from Democrats this year and, as is tradition for incumbents, is expected to win all races on Tuesday.
The question for Republicans is whether Haley can garner support. She won only one contest, the Washington DC primary, which CNN reported on Sunday. Although Haley lags far behind in her delegate count, she argues that Republicans deserve a second option. Unless her support for Haley explodes in an unexpected way, will her Super Tuesday setback drop her from the race?
For Democrats, Biden will sound a wake-up call in Michigan. There, he easily won the Democratic primary, but more than 100,000 Democratic primary voters chose “Irresponsible” over Biden. “Uncommitted” won two of Michigan’s delegates, the only one Biden has lost so far.
As the death toll of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip exceeds 30,000, Democratic primary voters in the state, which has a large Arab-American and Muslim population, are protesting the president’s Israel policies and calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. We are calling for even stronger promotion of this. Are there any signs of more protests on Super Tuesday?
Meanwhile, none of Biden’s Democratic rivals have gained significant support. Representative Dean Phillips has not been able to break out of single digits in states where Biden is campaigning. His former leading rival, Marianne Williamson, actually took the unusual step of lifting the campaign suspension.
Strictly speaking, it’s not Super Tuesday. Neither candidate will win a majority of delegates until late March, and both candidates are likely to pass the “magic number” on March 12th or March 19th.
Trump needs to win 1,215 of 2,429 delegates, while Biden needs to win 1,968 of 3,934 delegates.
In any case, the primaries will continue until early June. Party conventions are not held until July for Republicans and August for Democrats.
Modern primary systems have only developed in recent decades. Super Tuesday has grown along with it. The term was first used in his 1980s. Democratic parties in southern states wanted moderate candidates and timed their primaries to further expand their influence in the process. We haven’t necessarily achieved that goal.
Liberal then-Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis largely decided the 1988 Democratic primary with a Super Tuesday victory. But in 1992, then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton made a complete comeback, sweeping the Southern states on that year’s Super Tuesday.
In 2008, 21 states held their primaries on Super Tuesday in early February, an example of moving their primaries forward. But then Sen. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton split their delegates between Democrats. Sen. John McCain decisively ousted former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney from the Republican race.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
[ad_2]
Source link
