US Elections: Super Tuesday

Before 1972, thousands of delegates were chosen to go to the party conventions every leap year (plus 1900, which was an election year but not a leap year), but only the state party leaders had a vote, and they cast all the votes for their state for whomever they chose. Once upon a time, they usually voted for a 'favourite son,' on the first vote, i.e., someone from their state who was more-or-less running for president, and after that, they got serious and haggled in smoke-filled rooms. But in '68, the Democrats chose the vice-president (the usual choice when the president was not running for re-election) AFTER the president had resigned since his presidency was NOT going well, and his doctors had diagnosed a fatal illness. The 'usual choice' proved a disaster for the Democrats. So in '72, they actually let the voters choose using the British algorithm, where the person supported by a plurality of the Democratic voters got all of the states' votes. Just 25% of Democrats managed to nominate a candidate who was not supported by many Democrats and almost no Republicans, and he lost almost every state.

This year, the Democrats pick more than 4,000 delegates who get to go to the party called the Democratic Convention, and the Republicans pick more than 2,000 delegates to go to their party's party. As before, the heads of the state party cast all the votes, but (on the first round) they must cast votes for the candidates to which their delegates have been pledged.

And today, 661 Republican delegates will be allocated, and 865 delegates for Democrats. Maybe. Different sites have different numbers. Another site counting delegates at stake today says that 632 Republican delegates … will be awarded…[and] 1,007 … Democratic delegates… are at stake. So it appears that no one is sure how to count the delegates at stake today.

But in any case, today the largest number of delegates will be pledged of any single day during the 2016 nomination process. Of course, the Democratic candidate needs more than 2,000 delegates to win, and the Republican needs more than 1,000, and the process is supposed to be proportional, but, with 30% of the vote, Trump has 64% of the delegates from the first four nomination contests. 

The Democrats are more proportional (to avoid another disaster like '72). After Obama pulled ahead (having counsellors who knew where the smallest amount of money and effort would produce the most delegates), even when Senator Clinton won a state, she only won a few more delegates than Obama, and could not close the gap.

So today, Secretary Clinton will get most of those 865 - 1,007 delegates, and Trump will get at least the plurality of those 632 - 661 delegates, if not the majority. Neither will have enough delegates to win, but Secretary Clinton will be far ahead of Senator Sanders.

Trump is harder to predict. If, after today, all but one anti-Trump Republican drop out, and that sole survivor runs against Trump, he'll probably win. But all four anti-Trump Republicans show no sign of quitting before the bitter end. And a recent poll says Trump's share of Republican voters has risen from a plurality of 30% to a majority.

Of course, that's only one poll, and it's an outlier.

Today's contest is much broader than any we've seen so far, and sometimes actual votes don't tally very well with polls at the state level. The Democratic contest is fairly easy to predict: Secretary Clinton should win almost everything except for Vermont. There will be no surprises.

The Republican contest is much harder to predict. Trump is almost certain to get a plurality of delegates, but is not so certain to get a majority, and he needs a majority to win. So the Republican contest could be very interesting today. If Trump gets more than 60% of the delegates today, he'll be very hard to stop. If he gets only a plurality that's not a majority, it means he will not be the nominee.