So, what's so super about Tuesday?
The answer is that there are a lot delegates available in the U.S. primary process.
As I have been explaining over the last few weeks, party candidates have been vying to collect delegate votes in both primary and caucus events. To date, processes have occurred in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and in South Carolina (for the Republicans - the Democratic primary in South Carolina is today) but on March 1 a whole group of states are in play.
Usually I wouldn't write out a whole list in the middle of this column but I thought it might be helpful to see what's up for grabs on Tuesday and to note a few oddities about the different processes. There will be 10 primaries.
I will list the Republican delegate number first followed by the number for the Democrats: Alabama with 50 / 60 delegates; Arkansas with 40 / 37; Georgia with 76 / 116; Massachusetts with 42 / 116; Minnesota with 38 / 93; Oklahoma with 43 / 42; Tennessee with 58 / 76; Texas with 155 / 252; Vermont with 16 / 26; and Virginia with 49 / 110. In Alaska the Republicans will be holding a caucus where there are 28 delegates available but the Democrats won't hold their caucus until March 26 for 20 delegates.
In American Samoa the nine delegates available for the Republican Party will be unpledged. In other words, they will only select delegates who will attend the convention but who are free to vote whichever way they want.
The Democrats have 10 delegates available and will call a caucus vote.
Similarly in Colorado, the Republicans will elect 37 unpledged delegates but the Democrats will choose a nominee (or nominees as the votes are proportioned) for the 79 delegates. In total, the Democrats have 4,765 delegates and the Republicans have 2,472.
This paragraph is probably the most cumbersome I have ever written for my column (if I'm wrong please don't tell me) but the list demonstrates the very different weight of particular jurisdictions which is mostly based on party loyalty.
The rules for the Republicans are as follows: "There are three types of delegates: At-Large Delegates(AL)are statewide delegates who are residents of that state and are selected at large. Each state receives 10 AL delegates plus additional AL delegates based on the state's past Republican electoral successes (10 delegates + bonus); Congressional District CD) Delegates must be residents of and selected by the congressional district they represent.
"Each state gets three CD delegates per district (three delegates per district); RNC Membersare automatically national convention delegates and include the state's national committeeman, national committeewoman and state chair (three delegates)."
The rules for the Democrats: "The pledged delegate base allocation is determined by the jurisdiction's Presidential vote in 2004, 2008 and 2012... Jurisdictions beginning their process later in the cycle and neighboring states that concurrently begin their process (aka clustering) received bonus delegates.
The unpledged... Democratic delegates consist of Democratic governors (and the mayor of DC), Democratic U.S. House members, Democratic U.S. senators (and the statehood senators of DC); DNC members; and distinguished party leaders (current and former Democratic presidents, Democratic leadership of the U.S. House and Senate, and chairpersons of the DNC)."
As you can see from the rules for both parties a great deal of weight is given to the way a state voted in the past.
This Super Tuesday is particularly interesting because many southern states decided to move their primaries to March 1 in order to give more weight to their vote.
The so-called SEC primary or the Southeastern Conference (named for the College Athletic league) includes: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
In 2012, the Republicans won all of these states, except Virginia, in the national election.
Clearly the primaries here mean a great deal for the Republican candidate and all eyes are on the outsider, namely Donald Trump, to see how he does in these states. If Ted Cruz does not win Texas, his home state, there will be significant questions about his candidacy. If he loses and leaves the race there is a possibility for Rubio to gain support from Cruz's delegates. In this race, every delegate is going to count and Super Tuesday has the potential to be a turning point (although there are still some very big primaries left to go).
