While most states hold elections on Tuesdays, Saturdays have also been a traditional election date as we have already seen this year with the Nevada Caucuses and South Carolina primary. In past years, the first two Saturdays after the windows open have been somewhat busy. In 2016, three states held primaries or caucuses on the first Saturday in March (with one contest being held on the first Sunday in March and one contest being held on the second Saturday in March). While the first Saturday in March was not an available date in 2012, the Republicans had four caucuses on the second Saturday in March. On the first available weekend in February 2008, four caucuses and one primary took place.
This year, the weekend after Super Tuesday had no contests, and only one contest is scheduled for the second weekend in March. That contest is the Northern Marianas which will hold its convention on March 14. The Northern Marianas is an “unincorporated territory” consisting of the islands in the Marianas Archipelego (excluding Guam). The contest in the Northern Marianas is a territory-wide convention. In 2016, less than 200 people attended the convention.
This is only the second time that the people in Northern Marianas will be electing delegates to the national convention. My hunch is that, even though every delegate counts, the major candidates are unlikely to put much effort into this contest, and the vote will be based on what news media and social media coverage Democrats in that territory have seen. In other words, name recognition and success in the earlier contests will count for a lot.
While I have not seen any draft of this year’s delegate selection plan for the Northern Marianas, the 2016 plan was a mix between a party-run primary and a traditional caucus. Like a party-run primary, the initial vote was all that counted, and there was no chance for the supporters of a non-viable group to realign. But like a caucus, you had to be present in person, and immediately after viability was determined the separate caucuses elected their delegates to the national convention.
Like in 2016, the Northern Marianas will have six delegates to this year’s national convention. That means each delegate is worth approximately 16.67%. Assuming no more than three viable candidates, It will take around 27% to assure a candidate of two delegates. It will take around 43% to be certain of three delegates. It will take around 60% be guarantee four delegates. It will take 75% to clinch five delegates.
As with American Samoa on Super Tuesday, it is unclear how closely the national media will be following the events in the Northern Marianas. But there is nothing else occurring on the Democratic side until March 17; so there may be some media attention especially if we get another unusual result like we did with American Samoa.
