Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have shattered the principles and expectations of American politics. As the 2016 campaign enters Super Tuesday, can they continue to beat the odds? Sam O’Connor provides you with everything you need to know about this most crucial day of the primary season.
With the potential exception of Kanye West’s creative process, there’s not anything quite as baffling, protracted or complex as the way Americans elect their President. Consider this; even if you wanted to be the occupier of the White House come January 20, 2017, your effort would formally have to start around 18 months prior. Unofficially, you’d have probably spent some time sounding out possible fans, staffers and donors almost immediately after the conclusion of the previous election cycle. So as to be a viable candidate, then you need the backing of either several deep-pocketed donors, or even a large number of individuals ready to contribute to a cause (or both). After this is all 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 governmental missteps, poor debate performances or simply bad luck.
At this time of writing, the 2016 election effort is quite much underway. Currently, both major parties in the United States, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have been in the process of picking their individual presidential nominees. Each state and territory holds primary elections to opt for these candidates. Whoever wins the maximum support in the members of their party then go on to face their competition in November. Easy, right? Unfortunately, the American primary system is a labyrinth full of strange rules and quirky processes that make it far from simple. Each state has a certain number of delegates allocated to them by the parties’ executive. Delegates are divided between candidates depending on the amount of votes they receive. All these delegates subsequently are bound to vote for a particular candidate in the party national convention, where the presidential nominee is proclaimed.
But, there’s no national standard for how a presidential primary is ran. Many delegates are split proportionally based on the popular vote, however there are some exceptions. Some states, like Ohio or Florida, award all delegates to whoever comes in first place. Some countries hold”open” primaries in which anybody, not just registered Democrats or Republicans, can participate, while some have been”closed” off only to enrolled party fans. Some nations, the most famous being Iowa, maintain caucuses rather than a primary. Caucuses work more like city meetings, in which citizens gather not only to vote but to advocate for their preferred candidate. Early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire typically function as a means of filtering fringe candidates and people without the backing for a longer effort. On the other hand, the 2016 campaign cycle has been perhaps the very unconventional in years, and the common principles of American election campaigns are not applying.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump has dominated surveys, airtime and debates, despite little assistance in the Republican Party’s institution. After initially being disregarded 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 from the New Hampshire primary, after placing a respectable second in Iowa behind conservative Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He followed up with big wins in Nevada and South Carolina. Trump contributes to both national polling and the majority of the nations voting on March 1. On the other hand, the so-called”coronation” of Hillary Rodham Clinton has been disrupted by the increase of unknown Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Sanders has ran a campaign reminiscent of Barack Obama’s in 2008, focusing on young people and pupils, describing himself as a”democratic socialist” who wants to break up the huge banks, make college education free and establish a single-payer healthcare system. While Clinton has overwhelming support from elected Democrats and party officials, courtesy of her status as a former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State, she has faltered slightly as more progressive Democrats have changed their support to Sanders. From the Democrats’ Iowa caucus, Clinton narrowly defeated Sanders by a miniscule margin, while at New Hampshire she had been defeated easily by Sanders. On the other hand, the campaign goes to a series of predominantly Southern states. Clinton’s support among Democrats, according to polling, is most powerful amongst African-Americans, Hispanics and much more moderate Democrats- all of whom make up the majority of Democratic voters in these states. The twin climbs of Trump and Sanders, previously figures on the political fringe, to mainstream attention, indicates the 2016 election is really unlike any other.
On Tuesday 1 March, called”Super Tuesday”, 12 states visit the polls. Hillary Clinton’s crushing victory on February 27 in South Carolina’s first election has invigorated her campaign 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 predominantly Southern, with large numbers of African-American voters, who encouraged her by huge margins in South Carolina. If, as expected, Clinton replicates her SC functionality, anticipate comfortable successes for her in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Texas and Virginia. Sanders is favoured to win his home state of Vermont, and be competitive in different states, including Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Minnesota. But due to the fact that delegates are awarded , Sanders is very likely to be well behind Clinton in terms of delegate numbers post-Tuesday, and might need to concede that his campaign is not likely 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 specialist Nate Silver, favours Trump to acquire most nations on the ballot. But this is complicated by the fact that Ted Cruz is very likely to win his home state of Texas, and collect a large number of delegates owing to Texas’ standing as the USA’s second-most populous state. Outside of Texas, Cruz’s polling numbers have faltered from the South, a region his campaign was expected to poll very strongly in. Cruz’s fall has emboldened the effort 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 a couple of countries (or not, as the case may be) would be damaging for his effort. Rubio’s pitch is based around the concept that his youth, Hispanic and extrinsic background makes him the most electable Republican at a general election against Hillary Clinton. Failing to put in a good showing this Tuesday could overtake this somewhat.
From Wednesday afternoon (Australian time), we’ll have a far clearer picture of just who the two big candidates will likely be. In this most unpredictable and remarkable of American election decades, anything could occur. Stay tuned.
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