Election News and Features
Super Tuesday: Final Chapter or Next Installment
by
findingDulcinea Staff
As Super Tuesday begins, voters wonder how long it will be before the Republican and Democratic nominees are decided.
30-Second Summary
Today the differing strategies adopted by candidates throughout the primary season may finally pay off—or not.
But with so many states involved, including some facing issues with voting machines and delegate counts, it may be more than a day before the votes are tallied.
Beyond the logistical issues of voting, there is also the question of what Super Tuesday will mean for the winners on either side of the party line. For Republicans, the candidate who wins a state takes all its delegates. So, today is likely to produce a clear winner.
In contrast, the number of delegates a Democrat wins is proportionate to the popular vote. Super Tuesday is not expected to end the Democratic race for nomination.
According to The Washington Post, “Democratic strategist Bill Carrick put it best: ‘To paraphrase Churchill,’ he wrote in an e-mail, ‘the Democrats are at the end of the beginning and the Republicans are at the beginning of the end.’”
But with so many states involved, including some facing issues with voting machines and delegate counts, it may be more than a day before the votes are tallied.
Beyond the logistical issues of voting, there is also the question of what Super Tuesday will mean for the winners on either side of the party line. For Republicans, the candidate who wins a state takes all its delegates. So, today is likely to produce a clear winner.
In contrast, the number of delegates a Democrat wins is proportionate to the popular vote. Super Tuesday is not expected to end the Democratic race for nomination.
According to The Washington Post, “Democratic strategist Bill Carrick put it best: ‘To paraphrase Churchill,’ he wrote in an e-mail, ‘the Democrats are at the end of the beginning and the Republicans are at the beginning of the end.’”
Headline Links: Super Tuesday
According to NPR, candidates work to contrast their strengths with their opponents’ weaknesses. Both Democratic and Republican candidates alike, “compete for the support of sought-after voting groups such as independents, Latinos, college students, evangelicals and conservatives.” The article discusses McCain's, Clinton's, Romney's and Huckabee’s individual campaign strategies, and the states each candidate hopes most to win.
Source: NPR
Mike Silverman, Senior Managing Editor of the Associated Press, details how the AP will cover the Super Tuesday results: “We don’t call a race until we’re confident. So if it’s close, if it’s within a few percentage points, we’ll wait until we see the trend and make sure there aren’t any unanswered questions or big gaps that might leave us surprises. And this year, turnout is very heavy, setting records in some of the early races, so we’re obviously keeping that in mind very much, since the results will differ in some ways from past elections.” Silverman’s commentary is to be found among the many stories in the findingDulcinea “Super Tuesday Roundup.”
Source: findingDulcinea
The logistics of the voting process during Super Tuesday may make tallying the results a slow process. According to The New York Times, developments with voting machines and a high turnout “could increase bottlenecks in precincts with too few voting machines.” California, the state with the most delegates, recently revamped its entire voting process, transitioning from electronic voting machines to paper ballots. The Times quotes Barbara Dunmore, the county registrar of voters in Riverside County, California: “They may be high-tech or they could be low-tech, but the problems are always there.” In addition, the surge in absentee ballots, which can be difficult to read and often get damaged en-route to polling stations, could slow down the vote count across the country.
Source: New York Times
The outcome of Super Tuesday’s results may not decide the fate of either party. According to The Washington Post, it seems relatively likely that the Republican race will end after Super Tuesday, “unless John McCain stumbles badly.” On the other hand, the Democratic nomination hangs in the balance: “The Democratic race will not end today and may not end for another two months.” The article also examines key demographics and states for each candidate, focusing especially on Latino and female voters.
Source: The Washington Post
Opinion & Analysis: How long, and how definitive will Tuesday be?
Robert Novak of the Houston Chronicle explores the long process of determining the Democratic nominee. According to Novak, “No choice will be made for months and perhaps not until the national convention at Denver in late August.” Novak continues, “Nor, because of delegate division, is it guaranteed that a nominee would be selected by March 4, in the Texas and Ohio primaries, or even by April 22, when Pennsylvania votes. Many of the 796 "super delegates’ (unelected prominent Democrats) can remain undecided.”
Source: Houston Chronicle
A TPM reader blog debunks some myths about Super Tuesday, including the idea that the day will settle a party’s nomination process. According to one blogger, “It turns out that Super Tuesday simply can’t settle the race. It has nothing to do with how close the polls are, and everything to do with the fact that even if one candidate were to win every available delegate, they would still fall well short of the 2,025 needed to secure the nomination.”
Source: TPM
Reference: Primary election coverage
PBS provides an interactive map of America with up-to-the-minute results for each state and historical information detailing previous ballot results.
Source: PBS
Slate's coverage of Super Tuesday carries the banner "Don't Trust Californian Exit Polls," a warning issued on account of the large number of absentee voters. At the bottom of the page, there are nationwide and state-by-state results from the primaries.
Source: Slate
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