Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have shattered the rules and expectations of American politics. As the 2016 campaign enters Super Tuesday, can they still continue to beat the odds? Sam O’Connor provides you with everything you want to know about this most important day of the main season.
With the possible exception of Kanye West’s creative process, there is nothing quite as baffling, protracted or complex as the way Americans elect their President. Consider this; even if you wished to be the occupier of the White House come January 20, 2017, then your effort would formally have to start around 18 weeks prior. Unofficially, you would have likely spent some time sounding out possible fans, staffers and donors almost right after the conclusion of the previous election cycle. So as to be a viable candidate, you want the backing of several deep-pocketed donors, or millions of individuals ready to contribute to your cause (or both). Once this is sorted, you then spend months doorknocking, shaking hands and holding rallies in Iowa and New Hampshire…and it could be all for naught thanks to political missteps, poor debate performances or simply bad luck.
As of time of writing, the 2016 election campaign is very much underway. Presently, both major parties in the United States, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, are in the process of choosing their individual presidential nominees. Each state and territory holds primary elections to choose these candidates. Whoever wins the most support from the members of the party then go on to face their opponent in November. Simple, right? Sad to say, the American main system is a labyrinth full of strange rules and unique processes which make it far from easy. Every state has a certain number of delegates allocated to them by the parties’ executive. Delegates are split between candidates based on the amount of votes they receive. These delegates subsequently are bound to vote for a particular candidate at the party national convention, where the presidential nominee is proclaimed.
But, there’s absolutely no national standard for how a presidential primary is conducted. Most delegates are divided based on the popular vote, however there are a number of exceptions. Some nations, such as Ohio or Florida, award all delegates to whomever comes in first place. Some countries maintain”open” primaries where anyone, not only registered Democrats or Republicans, can participate, while others have been”closed” off just to registered party supporters. Some states, the most famous being Iowa, maintain caucuses rather than a primary. Caucuses work more like town meetings, in which citizens gather not only to vote but also to urge for their preferred candidate. Early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire typically serve as a means of filtering out fringe candidates and those without the backing for a longer campaign. However, the 2016 effort cycle has been possibly the very unconventional in years, and the typical principles of American election campaigns are not applying.
On the other hand, Donald Trump has dominated polls, airtime and debates, despite little support from the Republican Party’s establishment. After initially being dismissed as a joke offender after his eyebrow-raising announcement address branding Mexican immigrants as”rapists”, Trump rapidly rose to the top of GOP polling. He cemented his front-runner status using a comfortable victory in the New Hampshire primary, after putting a respectable second in Iowa behind conservative Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He followed these up with big wins in Nevada and South Carolina. Trump contributes to both federal polling and the majority of the nations voting on March 1. On the Democratic side, the so-called”coronation” of Hillary Rodham Clinton has been disrupted by the rise of hitherto unknown Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Sanders has conducted a campaign reminiscent of Barack Obama’s in 2008, focusing on young people and students, describing himself as a”democratic socialist” who pledges to break up the huge banks, make college education free and set a single-payer healthcare strategy. While Clinton has overwhelming support from elected Democrats and party officials, due to her status as a former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State, she has faltered somewhat as more progressive Democrats have switched their support to Sanders. In the Democrats’ Iowa caucus, Clinton narrowly defeated Sanders with a miniscule margin, while in New Hampshire she was defeated easily by Sanders. On the other hand, the campaign goes to a series of predominantly Southern countries. Clinton’s support among Democrats, according to polling, is strongest amongst African-Americans, Hispanics and more moderate Democrats- all of whom make up the vast majority of Democratic voters in those states. The twin rises of Trump and Sanders, previously figures on the political fringe, to mainstream focus, indicates the 2016 election is really unlike any other.
On Tuesday 1 March, known as”Super Tuesday”, 12 states go to the polls. Hillary Clinton’s crushing victory on February 27 in South Carolina’s primary election has invigorated her effort and place her in the box seat for Tuesday’s elections (Wednesday afternoon Australian time). Clinton is aided by the fact that the states voting on Tuesday are mostly Southern, with substantial numbers of African Americans, who supported her by enormous margins in South Carolina. If, as anticipated, Clinton replicates her SC functionality, anticipate comfortable victories for her in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Texas and Virginia. Sanders is favoured to win his home state of Vermont, and be aggressive in other states, including Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Minnesota. But because of the fact that delegates are awarded , Sanders is likely to be well behind Clinton concerning delegate numbers post-Tuesday, and might have to concede that his campaign is unlikely to succeed.
The GOP’s Super Tuesday is likely to be one at which The Donald reigns supreme. FiveThirtyEight, a polling aggregator run by elections expert Nate Silver, favours Trump to win many nations on the ballot. However, this is complicated by the fact that Ted Cruz is extremely likely to win his home state of Texas, and amass a high number of delegates owing to Texas’ status as the USA’s second-most populous state. Outside of Texas, Cruz’s polling numbers have faltered in the South, a region his campaign was expected to poll very strongly in. Cruz’s fall has emboldened the campaign of Marco Rubio, but even so, Rubio lags well behind Trump in most state polling. Rubio may wind up amassing a handy number of delegates via second-places, but winning just one or two states (or not, as the case might be) would be detrimental for his effort. Rubio’s pitch is based around the concept that his youth, Hispanic and extrinsic background makes him the most electable Republican in a general election against Hillary Clinton. Failing to devote a good showing this Tuesday may dampen this somewhat.
From Wednesday afternoon (Australian time), we’ll have a much clearer picture of just who the two big candidates will likely be. In this unpredictable and impressive of American election years, anything could happen. Stay tuned.
