For Democrats, Super Tuesday means crash or crash through.
By: T.J. Weber
Tags: Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Super Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren

In America today, 14 states are holding their Democratic Party nominating contests simultaneously. As a result, today is known as Super Tuesday.

The Super Tuesday 14: the states shaded blue are holding their primary or caucus today.

In each state, candidates compete for delegates to the Democratic National Convention which will be held in Milwaukee from the 13th to the 16th of July. There, the delegates will choose the Democratic nominees for President and Vice President. Whoever is chosen will lead the party to the US Presidential Election, held later in November.

It’s a long process.

Super Tuesday is important because of the extremely large number of delegates to be won in just one day. Among the 14 states are California and Texas, the two most populous states in the country. In Milwaukee, a candidate will need at least 1,991 delegates to win the nomination. Today there are 1,357 up for grabs.

The stakes are high.

Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and Tom Steyer all dropped out of the race after Saturday’s South Carolina primary. Afterwards, Buttigieg and Klobuchar joined the well known former federal legislators Harry Reid and Beto O’Rourke in endorsing Joe Biden.

Prior to serving as Barack Obama’s Vice President from 2009 to 2017, Biden was a senator from Delaware for 36 years. He served as chairman of the Senate’s powerful Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees, two of the most coveted positions in Congress. If elected, he would be the second Catholic President after John F. Kennedy.

Biden has run on Obama’s record, such as promising to defend and expand the Affordable Care Act. He has staked his campaign on his perceived electability, promoting his moderate progressive stances in obvious contrast to Bernie Sanders. On Saturday, Mr. Biden won in every county in South Carolina.

A senator from Vermont, Sanders is one of the United States’ rare independents. Even rarer, he is a self described socialist in a country where the term is considered political taboo. He has run a campaign of major reform for the country. It has lead him to victory in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

Sanders currently has the most delegates for the nomination, making him the front-runner.

Elizabeth Warren is a colleague of Mr. Sanders, she represents Massachusetts in the Senate. She came to national prominence due to her expertise in bankruptcy law, and her work during the 2008 financial crisis advising the Congress and the White House. She has consistently polled well through the campaign, but has so far performed poorly, up until today she has won just 7 delegates.

Michael Bloomberg is today’s wildcard. He’s a billionaire and a former Republican Mayor of New York City, he has spent very large amounts of his own money to get into the Democratic race late, he has risen in the polls quickly as he positions himself as the moderate alternative to Biden. Bloomberg has not been on the ballot in any state until today, the results will show if his big gamble has paid off.

The final contender is Tulsi Gabbard, a veteran of the Army National Guard who holds a Hawaiian district in the US House of Representatives. She campaigns largely on her opposition to American military interventionism, her decision to meet Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has made her a fringe candidate her the Democratic nomination.

The results will start coming through shortly. They will likely end a campaign or two. A candidate could have a very good night and become the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. That would give them a head start for selecting a running mate and then trying to unite a divided party.