By Bart Barker
February 27, 2016
Tuesday will be the biggest primary and caucus day in the 2016 presidential election in terms of the number of delegates to be earned. Fully 24 percent of all Republican delegates and 21 percent of Democratic delegates will be determined on March 1.
A Democratic candidate needs 2,383 of 4,765 delegates to win the nomination, and 1,004 are up for grabs Tuesday. A Republican candidate needs 1,237 of 2,472 delegates, of which 595 will be allocated Tuesday.
Seven of the Super Tuesday states are in the South, an area where Hillary Clinton is expected to be strong. She seems to have won South Carolina delegates 31-12. Bernie Sanders is likely to be strong only in Massachusetts and Vermont. Clinton’s lead won’t be insurmountable after Tuesday, but it will be significant.
Surprisingly, Ted Cruz doesn’t seem to be that far ahead of Donald Trump in Cruz’s home state of Texas, the largest on Tuesday. Trump leads in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Oklahoma and Massachusetts, among others.
Super Tuesday background
Super Tuesday began in 1988, after Democrats had lost badly to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 and 1984 landslides. Democrats wanted to give more visibility to moderate Democrats in the South in an effort to avoid ultra-liberal candidates. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that year: the very liberal Michael Dukakis won the nomination but lost badly to George H.W. Bush. Dukakis won only 10 states.
Many of those more moderate Democrats in the South are now Republicans, and many of those states are primarily Republican. But Super Tuesday remains a very important election for both parties.
Delegate allocation
Most of the states involved in Tuesday’s primaries allocate their delegates proportionally, so a second-or third-place candidate can still win some of the delegates. In some cases a candidate needs to reach a minimum threshold of votes to receive any delegates. A Democrat needs at least 15 percent of the vote to get any delegates. The threshold varies by state for Republicans, and in some cases a candidate with more than 50 percent of the vote gets all the delegates.
Fifteen percent of Democratic delegates are unpledged, meaning they don’t have to vote for the candidate chosen by voters in their states. These often are called superdelegates and are the cause of some controversy this year, although the system has been in place since 1988. Clinton narrowly leads in delegates won, 82-63. But she has 453 of the 712 superdelegates; Sanders has only 20 (source: RealClear Politics). Since superdelegates are not pledged they can change their minds up through the convention. But Sanders will have to win a lot more delegates to overcome Clinton’s superdelegates.
Republicans also have unpledged delegates, but they comprise only about 7 percent of the total. And in some states they are expected to vote as the voters did. They have far less influence than the Democrats’ superdelegates.
Delegate counts to date
These numbers include the February 27 South Carolina Democratic primary results (source: RealClear Politics).
|
Democrats | |||
|
Candidate |
Delegates Won |
Superdelegates |
Total |
|
Hillary Clinton |
82 |
453 |
535 |
|
Bernie Sanders |
63 |
20 |
83 |
|
Republicans | |||
|
Candidate |
Delegates | ||
|
Donald Trump |
81 | ||
|
Marco Rubio |
17 | ||
|
Ted Cruz |
17 | ||
|
John Kasich |
6 | ||
|
Ben Carson |
4 | ||
Super Tuesday polls
RealClear Politics tracks numerous polls, both nationally and by state. Here are their averages for the Tuesday states (averages are not available for all states due to limited polling):
Republicans
|
State |
Delegates |
Trump |
Rubio |
Cruz |
Kasich |
Carson |
Spread |
| Texas | 172 | 26.8% | 18.2% | 34.0% | 7.0% | 5.4% | Cruz +7.2% |
| Georgia | 76 | 37.0 | 21.3 | 18.3 | 7.7 | 8.0 | Trump +15.7 |
| Alabama | 50 | 35.5 | 17.5 | 15.5 | 5.0 | 11.5 | Trump +18.0 |
| Virginia | 49 | 35.7 | 20.7 | 16.0 | 7.3 | 7.3 | Trump +15.0 |
| Oklahoma | 43 | 29.5 | 21.0 | 22.5 | 4.0 | 6.0 | Trump +7.0 |
| Massachusetts | 42 | 44.3 | 18.3 | 9.7 | 16.3 | 3.7 | Trump +26.0 |
| Arkansas | 40 | Close among Cruz, Trump and Rubio. | |||||
| Tennessee | 40 | Close between Trump and Carson. | |||||
| Minnesota | 38 | 22.0 | 19.5 | 12.5 | 15.0 | Trump +2.5 | |
| Colorado | 37 | Carson leads by a few points. | |||||
| Alaska | 28 | Trump and Cruz lead. | |||||
| Vermont | 16 | Trump leads. | |||||
Democrats
|
State |
Delegates |
Clinton |
Sanders |
Spread |
| Texas | 252 | 59.9% | 33.6% | Clinton +26.3% |
| Georgia | 116 | 62.8 | 26.0 | Clinton +36.8 |
| Massachusetts | 116 | 45.7 | 46.3 | Sanders +0.6 |
| Virginia | 110 | 54.5 | 35 | Clinton +19.5 |
| Minnesota | 93 | 54.5 | 28.5 | Clinton +26.0 |
| Colorado | 79 | Clinton leads strongly. | ||
| Tennessee | 76 | 53.0 | 30.0 | Clinton +23.0 |
| Alabama | 60 | 59 | 31 | Clinton +28 |
| Oklahoma | 42 | 45.0 | 36.0 | Clinton +9.0 |
| Arkansas | 37 | 57.0 | 28.5 | Clinton +28.5 |
| Vermont | 26 | 9.5 | 84.5 | Sanders +75.0 |
Super Tuesday delegate breakdown by state
Texas and Georgia have the most delegates in both parties. Here is a breakdown (source: Ballotpedia):
|
Republicans | |||||
|
State | Election type | Open or closed | Pledged delegates | Unpledged delegates | Total delegates |
| Texas | Primary | Open | 155 | 155 | |
| Georgia | Primary | Open | 76 | 76 | |
| Tennessee | Primary | Open | 58 | 58 | |
| Alabama | Primary | Open | 50 | 50 | |
| Virginia | Primary | Open | 49 | 49 | |
| Oklahoma | Primary | Closed | 43 | 43 | |
| Massachusetts | Primary | Mixed | 42 | 42 | |
| Arkansas | Primary | Open | 40 | 40 | |
| Minnesota | Caucuses | Open | 38 | 38 | |
| Colorado | Caucuses | Closed | 34 | 3 | 37 |
| Wyoming | Caucuses | Closed | 26 | 3 | 29 |
| Alaska | Caucuses | Closed | 28 | 28 | |
| Vermont | Primary | Open | 16 | 16 | |
| Total | 655 | 6 | 661 | ||
|
Democrats | |||||
|
State | Election type | Open or closed | Pledged delegates | Unpledged delegates | Total delegates |
| Texas | Primary | Open | 222 | 29 | 251 |
| Georgia | Primary | Open | 102 | 15 | 117 |
| Massachusetts | Primary | Mixed | 91 | 25 | 116 |
| Virginia | Primary | Open | 95 | 14 | 109 |
| Minnesota | Caucuses | Open | 77 | 16 | 93 |
| Colorado | Caucuses | Closed | 66 | 12 | 78 |
| Tennessee | Primary | Open | 67 | 8 | 75 |
| Alabama | Primary | Open | 53 | 7 | 60 |
| South Carolina | Primary | Open | 53 | 6 | 59 |
| Iowa | Caucuses | Closed | 44 | 8 | 52 |
| Nevada | Caucuses | Closed | 35 | 8 | 43 |
| Oklahoma | Primary | Closed | 38 | 4 | 42 |
| Arkansas | Primary | Open | 32 | 5 | 37 |
| New Hampshire | Primary | Mixed | 24 | 8 | 32 |
| Vermont | Primary | Open | 16 | 10 | 26 |
| American Samoa | Caucuses | Open | 6 | 5 | 11 |
| Total | 1,021 | 180 | 1,201 | ||
The totals do not quite equal those at the top of the article because not all states will allocate their delegates through their Super Tuesday events. For example, Republicans in Colorado aren’t having a presidential preference poll this year. The delegates vote for the candidates they chose when filing to become delegates.