Super Tuesday: Primary Concentration

Super Tuesday primaries and other selection events represent by far the most substantial voting of the presidential nomination process. Since 1968, the number of presidential primaries has steadily expanded. The February 5 voting has involved altogether approximately half the states in the Union. For years, some reformers have advocated a single national presidential primary. Super Tuesday very roughly approximates that goal.
Overall voter turnout is estimated at very substantial, no doubt breaking records in a number of the states involved. Younger people under thirty-five years of age, who traditionally are less active in the voting process than older citizens, also have participated in very large numbers. This was also true in primary and general election voting in 2004, and may be developing into a new national trend.
Among Republicans, relatively early returns indicate Senator John McCain has taken a number of states, solidifying his recently won role as party frontrunner. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won his home state plus Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia. So-called “values voters”, often religious evangelicals, have been identified as a support group crucial to his success. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney did not surpass McCain but has vowed to fight on.
Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continued their intense battle for support that conceivably might continue to the Convention. Clinton did extremely well with women voters, securing an estimated 58%. Obama drew substantial support from men, across racial lines. Neither could claim a decisive victory in national terms, though each did very well in particular states and regions.
Clinton has secured strong support in the Northeast, including Massachusetts as well as New York, which she represents in the United States Senate. The Massachusetts victory is important for reasons that go beyond the total delegates involved, given recent very highly publicized Kennedy family backing of Obama.
Prominent Kennedy family members endorsed Obama immediately after his very substantial victory in the South Carolina primary, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, his son U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the daughter of President Kennedy.
Connecticut went to Obama, who also took his home state of Illinois, and Alabama and Georgia in the South, among other states. Connecticut has a very long history as an unconventional state, including support for unpopular Republican President Herbert Hoover in 1932, when FDR and the Democrats were sweeping most states in the nation. The state has also backed more successful mavericks, including current independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who ran for Vice-President with Al Gore in 2000 and has recently endorsed Republican John McCain.
Obama’s demonstrated strength in the South will be important if he secures the Democratic nomination. In recent decades, white Southern voters have moved overwhelmingly to the Republican Party. The last two Democrats elected to the White House, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were from Southern states. Obama’s enormous demonstrated support among black voters could play a crucial difference in that region.
A great deal of media commentary has focused on the complex proportional representation involved in Democratic primaries, while Republicans have stuck with the more traditional winner-take-all approach. Veteran news correspondent Jeff Greenfield of CBS, searching for imagery, noted that the Republicans play poker, while the Democrats are seeking absolute equity, in the manner of slicing a cake at a children’s birthday party.
In fact, both parties have put together considerable variety, and complexity, in the structure of their Super Tuesday contests. The twenty-two Democratic state contests include seven caucuses, held in the relatively smaller states of Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico and North Dakota.
The twenty-one Republican contests include a number of winner-take-all primaries, but also proportional primaries in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Tennessee and West Virginia. Illinois and West Virginia also are using state party conventions. Republican caucuses are the route chosen in Minnesota and North Dakota.
Neither party has yet selected their nominee. McCain’s early victories have translated into a strong continuing lead. Clinton and Obama will continue a very close contest.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of ‘After the Cold War’ (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan). He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu