Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are leading the race in the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, for obtaining delegates to win the nomination for this year’s U.S. presidential election. Both Democrats and Republicans candidates hold caucus in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia.
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Democrats will send 4,763 delegates to their convention, with 2,382 needed for nomination.
For Republicans, Texas, the most populous Super Tuesday state, appears to be up for grabs. Ted Cruz’s home state, a pickup that could be a possibility based on recent polls where he trails the hometown favorite by a mere one point, although other polling has Cruz with a wider margin.
Rubio and a super PAC supporting him have recently purchased more than $400,000 of airtime in Virginia’s four biggest TV markets, according to the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project. There are no super-delegates, or those beyond the number allotted by the RNC who are delegates due to their elected status, in the Republican nominating process. Only two Democratic candidates are left, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
With so many elections taking place in so many different parts of the U.S., Super Tuesday serves as a gauge of each candidate’s national appeal.
Between 1968 and 1980, fluctuating degrees of chaos at the Democratic conventions resulted in momentum to give party elites a louder voice in the nomination process.
For Democrats, the preference poll determines how many delegates each candidate gets, but those delegates are not bound to the results. President Obama was running unopposed for re-election in most states, so all the action was on the Republican side. 26 are picked on the ballot, and three top party officials automatically qualify. If there is a tie with the Democrats, chance will decide the fate of who wins.
“There’s not going to be any results that say 60 percent of people favor Cruz or favor Trump”, said Daniel Cole, the Executive Director of the El Paso County Republicans.
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.
Caucus Rule #5 – Will Colorado have a victor on Super Tuesday?
Donald Trump is now projected to be triumphant on Super Tuesday, and even though I am a registered Republican, I do not want the current forerunner to win.
“This happens on Super Tuesday because Colorado’s legislators decided they wanted the state to grab some of the national attention”, said Skip Page, a longtime member of the La Plata County Republican Central Committee. Six Democratic delegates will also be at stake in the second congressional district, which runs from Northfield to Blackstone. But, as with the general election’s electoral college system, every once in a while there is a primary election in which the rules of the game have as much of an impact on the final outcome as the actual vote count of the people.
Which states are holding primaries Tuesday? In seven of those states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont – the threshold is 15 percent or more.
In a nutshell, a caucus is a small-ish gathering of party members, typically from around the same neighborhood, to hash out who will represent their interests and preference at the next-step-up meeting of the party. There is also a middle ground in which those delegates are reallocated to the remaining candidates.
Newman said that Clinton will still have obstacles to overcome if she wants to win.
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On all of ballots voters could select, they will see other party contests listed along with the presidential contest, such as for member of the state party committee.
