After a month of watching the 2016 clown car roll into early primary states, bringing its traveling flea circus into the isolated political environs of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, the presidential race will finally open up this week for Super Tuesday. Voters in 13 states—and one territory—will head to the polls on March 1, casting ballots in an onslaught that amounts to the biggest presidential contest before the general election in November.
If there's anything 2016 needs less at this point, it's another opportunity for cable news anchors to work themselves into a lather over the chaotic death spiral that is the presidential election. But so far, 2016 hasn't really cared what we think it needs. Super Tuesday is the kind of political made-for-TV marathon that keeps Wolf Blitzer up at night, talking strategy with his holograms. Expect every major media outlet to provide nonstop Super Tuesday coverage for the next 72 hours, shouting over one another to give hot-take analyses, play-by-play voting breakdowns, and unnecessary touch-screen demonstrations of just what it all means for the 2016 race.
In the words of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, it's gonna be yuuugee. Here's what you need you to know:
Which states are voting?
Technically, 13 states and American Samoa will hold nominating contests on March 1. But the big states to watch are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia, each of which will hold primaries for both Democrats and Republicans. Republicans will also get results from Alaska, which is holding its caucuses on Super Tuesday, and Democrats will hold their nominating contests in Colorado and American Samoa.
In a strange quirk of the GOP's nominating process, Republicans will also begin their caucuses in Colorado and Wyoming on Tuesday, but the results of those contests won't be made official until the state party conventions later this spring.
Combined, these states represent 22 percent of all the delegates up for grabs in the 2016 race—a total of 1,460, plus another 150 "superdelegates" who get to choose their candidate on the Democratic side.
What's at stake for Republicans?
To win the party's nomination, a Republican candidate needs to secure 1,237 delegates. So far, none of the five remaining GOP candidates—Trump, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and Ben Carson—has racked up more than 100 delegates. Nearly 600 Republican delegates are up for grabs on Tuesday, which means the results will likely go a long way toward determining which candidates have a viable path to win the nomination.
Can anyone stop Donald Trump?
In the lead up to Super Tuesday, Trump has looked increasingly like the GOP's inevitable nominee, a predictable development that has nevertheless sent the Establishment into a full-blown panic. The orange-hued billionaire continues to hold his lead in national polls, and he continues to gain momentum from his three consecutive wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. With 81 delegates, he's the indisputable front-runner heading into Tuesday's contests, and he is expected to score big in the Southern states, where his support is particularly strong. The endorsements from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Maine Governor Paul LePage could also give him a boost in the Northeast, solidifying his standing with the swamp Yankee base that handed him a resounding win in New Hampshire earlier this month.
At this point, the question is not so much whether Trump will clean up on Super Tuesday but just how sweeping his wins will be in the states that vote this week. If he continues to rack up big wins like the ones he saw in South Carolina and Nevada this month, he'll end Super Tuesday with a huge lead in the delegate count, leaving the GOP elite to deal with the party's impending apocalypse.
What about the other guys?
After a rancorous debate performance on Thursday night, Rubio goes into Super Tuesday as the clear Establishment favorite to take on Trump. While he trails behind the reality-TV mogul in most states, polls in several Midwestern states show him within striking distance. If he can win a state or two on Tuesday—and that's a big if—or at least come in close behind Trump in a handful of contests, he may be able to pick up enough delegates to stay in the game for another couple of weeks. If Rubio does manage to take advantage of the nutty Super Tuesday math like this, the Republican contest could turn into a two-man race after March 1, weakening Trump's momentum in the months going into the party's convention this summer.
For Cruz, Rubio's closest rival, Super Tuesday has come down to one state: Texas. Cruz is looking to win big on his home turf—incidentally, the most delegate-rich state to vote on Super Tuesday—in order to maintain a semblance of legitimacy for his candidacy going forward. After months of touting his Southern state strategy, though, Cruz seems likely to lose to Trump across the so-called SEC primary states. At this point, he and Rubio are like the Thelma and Louise of the GOP, driving off a cliff together in what may ultimately be a vain attempt to keep Trump out of the White House in 2017.
For Kasich and Carson, Super Tuesday looks even less promising. Both candidates continue to trail in the polls, running increasingly quixotic campaigns to the consternation of their entire party. It's not clear if Super Tuesday losses will knock either candidate out of the race, although Carson will probably take the opportunity to head home again to change his clothes.
What about the Democrats?
The electoral stakes on Super Tuesday are similarly high for Democrats, who will compete for 1,015 delegates on March 1—nearly a quarter of the total delegates needed to win the party's nomination. But coming off of Hillary Clinton's big win in South Carolina Saturday, the Democratic contest lacks the sort of nail-biting suspense typically associated with Super Tuesday.
At this point, Clinton continues to hold a lead in most of the major states set to cast ballots on Tuesday, including the delegate-heavy South and Midwest. Sanders seems likely to pick up wins in Vermont and Massachusetts, but at this point, it probably won't be enough to shake the perception that Clinton has all but won the party's nomination.
Like Rubio and Cruz, Sanders's only chance at staying in the game is to close the gap with Clinton in states that she is projected to win, picking off enough delegates to sustain the argument that he is running a viable campaign against the Democratic heir apparent.
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