VA Super Tuesday Preview
Amkutzko / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
Hey Virginia – it’s Super Tuesday tomorrow! Here’s a FAQ about it.
WHAT'S SO SUPER ABOUT IT?
On Tuesday, March 3, 14 states will hold Democratic primary elections. (Plus America Samoa holds a caucus.) There’s a lot at stake beyond just Virginia, because bigger states like California and Texas are also holding elections.
WAIT - WHAT ARE WE VOTING FOR AGAIN?
This is a PRIMARY election, where voters in a party choose the candidate who will represent that party in the general election in November. More accurately, voters are choosing delegates to the national party convention; these delegates are the people who actually vote to select the nominee. Primary season involves a bunch of these state-wide elections, typically only for the party that doesn’t have an incumbent President running for re-election. Since President Trump will be the slam-dunk nominee for the Republicans, the only game in town are the Democratic Party primaries.
WHY IS THAT SO COMPLICATED?
Primary elections replaced a party elite selection process in the 1970s, mainly to represent the “will of the people” and incorporate more voices. Still, the process has morphed to reflect the interests of party leaders and activists, as well as to try and help parties develop a consensus as early in the process as possible. Since primaries reflect the interests of 50 different state party organizations and various national power brokers, it’s exactly as messy as you might expect such a process to be.
SO WHAT EXACTLY IS AT STAKE IN VA?
VA Democrats award 99 delegates, who are pledged to winning candidates based on complicated state-wide vs. Congressional district calculations. You need to get 15% of the vote statewide to get a share of the 34 statewide delegates, and then need 15% in a particular congressional district to win a share of the delegates specific to that district. So if someone wins the popular vote in the VA primary, they almost certainly won't win all the delegates. In fact, although it's unlikely, someone else could win more.
WHO ARE THE DELEGATES AGAIN?
Party activists pledged to support candidates, plus some party and elected officials. Plus there are 25 "super-delegates,” who are elected and party officials who get an automatic vote at the national convention. They are not up for grabs in the primaries, and not obligated to support any particular candidate.
The odd thing is the people who will become pledged delegates haven't been chosen yet - they will be selected in a complicated city-county caucus format over the next few months. So you can think of tomorrow's primary as choosing delegate PLEDGES or CONVENTION VOTES for a particular candidate; later the party will choose the actual human who will physically cast that vote at the national convention.
WHO VOTES IN THE PRIMARY?
We're not sure. Turnout should be high, for a primary at least – but remember that relatively few people vote in primaries. (In the last Presidential primary in 2016, we had about 1.8M votes in VA vs. twice that many in the general election.) The Blue Wave is still cresting - early absentee voting is high, and Democrats seem pumped to find someone who can beat Trump. Bernie Sanders particularly appears to be mobilizing young people, but it remains to be seen how many will actually vote. (Young people do not have a good track record on voting.)
By the way, VA is an "open primary" state, meaning that you do not have to be a member of a party to vote in that party’s primary. Some people worry that this means we will see Republican “spoiler” votes tomorrow. But there is not much evidence that this happens in high enough numbers to make a difference. Plus, any wiseacre cross-party voter intent on spoiling should be careful what they wish for. (Ask any Dem who voted for Trump in an open primary because they thought he would be easy to beat.)
WHY DOESN'T MY (neighbor/mother/guy in next cubicle over) WISE UP AND SUPPORT (BERNIE, WARREN, BIDEN, WHOEVER)?
Well, they may say the same about you. The problem is that the Democratic Party as a whole, not to mention individual primary voters, have no clear idea of who they want to challenge Trump. They are trying to figure it out based on three often-conflicting issues:
POLICY: which candidate has the best idea to address the problems of healthcare accessibility or college affordability? The problem here is that there is not a lot of difference among candidates; everyone basically has a Medicare-for-All plan now, for example.
ELECTABILITY: Lots of Dems I know are engaged in galaxy-brain calculations about not just who THEY like, but who OTHERS like - other “moderate” Dems, other changeable Republicans, etc. The goal is to defeat Donald Trump, they say, so who has the best shot? The problem with trying to vote on “electability” of course, is that nobody knows anything about it. After Trump, even after Obama (a black man with the middle name Hussein?!? Yeah, right), NO ONE has any idea what makes a candidate electable. So Dems are probably clowning themselves with this one.
REPRESENTATION. A more important divide within the party is about which candidate best represents the party - and, activists argue, America as a whole. Do we really need another old white dude? Yet all the candidates of color (Harris, Booker) were essentially rejected earlier in the season. Warren and Klobuchar are trailing, and Buttigieg just left the race.
WHY DO THE POLLS CHANGE SO MUCH?
National and statewide polls seem to be shifting, especially as we get closer to Super Tuesday. All the calculations I talk about above are going on in real time; many Dem voters haven't made up their minds yet, and so they may be switching their support. Three weeks ago, many Virginians barely knew who Mike Bloomberg was; now they get 17 ads on their screens before they've even finished their morning coffee. Again, Mayor Pete just dropped out on Sunday, so polls are having trouble keeping up with events.
Also, while polling pros do not deserve the bashing they got after the 2016 election, they do suffer from a continuing problem: the electorate is changing. Again, Sanders particularly seems to be motivating new voters, which has been a trend in the Blue Wave more broadly. If you're not sure who is voting, then your poll numbers are going to be off.
FINE. JUST TELL US: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TUES?
Yikes! Who the heck knows?
Look, Sanders is clearly the front-runner. His coalition has expanded beyond the online Bernie Bros (although some Very Online Dudes continue to alienate some Dems with their “Bernie-or-Bust” attitude), and he clearly has tapped into the widespread economic discontent that spurred the Trump phenomenon. His supporters argue that the representation divide is less important than coming up with economic programs that help working and middle class Americans. The resulting economic prosperity for all, they say, will make racial reconciliation and other equity-based projects easier. We can expect him to win the most delegates overall on Super Tuesday, and maybe win in VA.
But former Vice President Joe Biden still has credibility with black voters and Dem establishment types – Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, who lives at the intersection of those two, endorsed him – and Biden is just coming off a bigger-than-expected win in SC. Bloomberg has ads running everywhere. Even trailing candidates like Warren and, to a lesser extent, Klobuchar, could turn a strong third-place finish into momentum. But note that if any of the challengers to Bernie, from Biden to Klobuchar, fare poorly on Tuesday overall, they are likely to drop out.
SO IT'S SANDERS?
Not necessarily. He is the front-runner, but many Dems are unsure about him. And because of the arcane rules of winning delegates, where even 15% can get you some, challengers might be able to hang in long enough to deny Bernie the majority of delegates he needs. If you come into the convention and Bernie only has, say, 45% of the delegates, then some Dems may try and argue that someone else would have a better chance at taking down Trump: Biden, Warren, or even a dark horse “savior” like (for chrissakes) Al Gore.
BUT while political junkies would love it, this kind of palace intrigue rarely happens anymore. Parties are rightfully worried about how fractious such politicking would be. The kind of back-room dealing that used to be how parties selected nominees would instead today be public, playing out in real-time, on screen for all to see. The resulting party fault lines would be hard to repair, making Trump's victory that much more likely.
SO IT'S 4 MORE YEARS?
Also not inevitable. Remember what I said about electability above: we have seen parties fall in line behind undesirable, flawed candidates before. If Bernie (or, less likely, someone else) wraps up the nom before the convention, Dems could rally behind him and sweep to victory in November; such an election would actually be a good test of the partisanship that defines and dominates our current politics. But it's a long way to go before then.
WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE FOR SUPER TUESDAY, THEN?
VA is likely to go to either Biden or Bernie, but by a slim margin. (My money is on Bernie, but my track record on predictions is spotty.) Overall, expect the race for Dem nominee to narrow after Tuesday, but definitely not be decided. Bernie should be in charge, but the challenge to him will coalesce around 1-2 other candidates. Then we'll be able to see if Bernie's movement has enough strength to win the delegates he needs. If it does (and maybe even if it doesn’t), he deserves the nomination.
Need more? I talked to 8News’ Kerri O’Brien last week and I should have more with WRIC/8News, either on air or online, tomorrow night. Dems go vote!