It's the biggest day during the American primary elections, a key stage in the process of nominating candidates for the country's presidential election. This year, on March 5, 16 states and one US territory are voting in the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses. During these ballots, almost a third of the total delegates required for a candidate to be nominated at each party's national convention are nominated: 865 of the 2,429 delegates on the Republican side, 1,420 of the 3,936 delegates on the Democratic side.
Traditionally, the outcomes of the day give a clearer insight into the prospective winners of the nomination race. This year, there's no such suspense, with Joe Biden and Donald Trump crushing the competition in their respective camps.
Fifteen states, including the two most populous
Super Tuesday this year involves 15 states – including two of the most populous, California and Texas – and one territory.
Polls generally close around 7 pm or 8 pm local time, and many states will announce results shortly thereafter. However, some states, such as California, may take several hours to announce their results.
- The primaries, a formality for Joe Biden
On the Democratic side, there is not much at stake: As the incumbent president, Biden is the natural candidate, and the party has lined up behind him. The primaries are a mere formality for him, despite the candidacies of Dean Phillips, 55, a centrist member of the House of Representatives from Minnesota, and author and activist Marianne Williamson, 71, who presents herself as a progressive spiritual leader.
To win the Democratic nomination, Joe Biden needs the support of 1,968 delegates. If he doesn't pass this mark on Super Tuesday, he'll come close.
"Joe Biden will be nominated," predicted Marie-Cécile Naves, a political scientist and director of research at the French Insitute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). However, she said, the Michigan primary, marked by tens of thousands of "uncommitted" votes to protest the White House's support for Israel, "sounds like a warning that may give ideas to his competitors, for example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr."
At 81, Biden is also the oldest candidate to hold the presidency and stand for re-election, which worries some of his 2020 voters. In a New York Times poll, 61% of respondents said he was "too old to be effective."
- Donald Trump wants to distance Nikki Haley even further
Donald Trump can hope that March 5 will mark the final defeat for Nikki Haley, his last rival in the Republican camp. On March 4, at the end of the first 10 caucuses and primaries, the former president had 244 delegates out of the 1,215 needed to be officially nominated. A total of 874 delegates will be distrbuted on Super Tuesday. He will not be able to win on Super Tuesday, then, but he can distance his rival for good. His campaign team has predicted that he will win 773 delegates in Tuesday's voting and reach the majority two weeks later.
"Nikki Haley is holding on because she figures that if Trump is ever prevented for any reason, she's available," said Naves. "And as long as she's around, Donald Trump himself will be forced to campaign a bit and spend money, when he'd like to project himself fully into the duel with Biden."
Will Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations be able to stay in the race if Donald Trump crushes the scores further on March 5? She has so far remained evasive. "We're going to keep going all the way through Super Tuesday," she told reporters in late February. "That's as far as I've thought in terms of going forward."
Trump's teams did everything they could to maximize his front-runner status. They have encouraged local Republican Party officials to make the rules governing the allocation of delegates as favorable to him as possible. The "winner takes all" rule, whereby the person who comes first wins all the delegates, has become more widespread. In California, for example, if Trump wins more than 50% of the vote, all 169 of the state's delegates will be awarded to him.
Only the courts now appear to be a potential threat to Trump's bid for the presidency. Nevertheless, the former president has so far used each of his appearances before judges as a platform to portray himself as a victim. On Monday, the eve of Super Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that he could not be struck from the ballot because of his role in the January 6 Capitol attack, after several states had attempted to do just that.
- Up next: formal nominations at the party conventions
At the end of the primaries, Trump and Biden will be officially nominated by their parties at the traditional conventions. The Republican National Convention will be held July 15-18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while the Democratic Convention will take place August 19-22 in Chicago, Illinois. Delegates also validate a party's candidate choice of vice president, which is usually announced a few days before the convention.