By now, you have probably heard people either celebrating or mourning Super Tuesday results. If you are not a politics enthusiast (or are someone who stays out of the loop), you might still care to learn about the biggest night in the 2020 primaries.
Super Tuesday is part of a series of electoral contests to select approximately 3,979 delegates from across the 50 states, Washington, D.C., United States territories, and Democrats abroad to elect the Democratic nominee for the 2020 U.S. presidential election. What is special about Super Tuesday is that 14 states and American Samoa hold primaries or caucuses simultaneously, culminating in the allocation of a third of the total delegates.
Even though the 2020 Democratic primaries started out with the most diverse candidates in the party’s history, there are only three candidates remaining, two of whom are septuagenarian white men.
Prior to Super Tuesday, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. This, among other factors, has placed Biden at the forefront of the Democratic ticket, with 627 total pledged delegates. Following Biden, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has 551 total pledged delegates. In third place, Elizabeth Warren accrued 64 total delegates. Due to her relatively poor performance, Warren has since dropped out and has yet to endorse a candidate. Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, has also terminated his campaign after he won 60 total delegates.
The third candidate remaining, Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. Representative from Hawaii, has accrued only 2 delegates from Super Tuesday and in total. Nonetheless, Gabbard has made no indication that she will be dropping out of the race. Whether or not the DNC revises the rules to qualify for the next Democratic Debate, which is on March 15, to effectively bar Gabbard from taking the stage due to her low delegate count and national polling remains to be seen.
Biden was able to derive momentum from his victory in South Carolina just before Super Tuesday, as well as recent endorsements from his fellow candidates. Although Biden is currently in the lead, Sanders still stands a chance to win if he is able to compensate for his Super Tuesday losses in the remaining states. Biden owes a significant amount of his wins to Black voters. On the other hand, Sanders has expressed disappointment at low turnout among young voters on Super Tuesday.
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