Super Tuesday is always a hard day for delegate math.  There are fifteen contests ranging from a territorial caucus in American Samoa (which given the time gaps will actually be taking while it is still Monday in most of the United States) to the massive primary in California in which a final count will not be available for several weeks.  Every candidate still running (and this post is going live while we are still waiting for the results in South Carolina) can point to some contest in which they might win delegates.  Super Tuesday is also the day on which we will see if Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s strategy of skipping the early caucuses and primaries worked.

As with the first four states in the “early” window,  these contests are complicated by the number of candidates running.  While the states differ from each other, in all of them, there is the question of how many candidates will reach the 15% threshold (either state-wide) or in a single district.  In Iowa (with the exception of the Second District in which only three candidates won delegates) every district and the state-wide results had four candidates break 15%.  In New Hampshire, in every district and state-wide, three candidates broke 15%.  In Nevada, one district had three viable candidates but the other districts and the state-wide results had only two viable candidates .  It seems likely that — in at least some districts and states — three or more candidates will reach that 15% threshold.  And multiple candidates reaching 15% will cause weird fractional issues.  Additionally, the possibility of some candidates getting between 10-13% could allow the viable candidates to gain more delegates than the minimum numbers discussed below.

Trying to do things chronologically, the first four contests to end (not necessarily the first four contests to report the results) are American Samoa, North Carolina, Virginia, and Vermont.  All of these contests close by 7:30 p.m. EST.  Part 2 will deal with the contests that close at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. CST,   Part 3 will deal with the states that close after 8 p.m. EST (excluding Texas and California).  Part 4 will deal with Texas and California. Continue Reading...