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UNO Experts Answer Questions on Super Tuesday, Presidential Politics

Political Science Chair Jody Neathery-Castro, Associate Professor Gregory Petrow, and Assistant Professor Paul Landow answer five outstanding questions about the March 1 political event and its history

Political Science Professors

From Left: Jody Neathery-Castrow, Gregory Petrow, Paul Landow

On Tuesday, March 1, 2016, nearly one fourth of all U.S. states will be holding a primary election or caucus where citizens will get that much closer to nominating the Republican and Democratic nominees for president.

The concept of a one-day event with numerous states holding their primary electoral contests is a relatively new idea, only really gaining popularity in the 1980s as a way to avoid the "Iowa Effect" with individual states having more power than others.

But, just how important is Super Tuesday, historically? And how will it affect this year's presidential contest?

To answer those questions, and several others, are three experts from the UNO Political Science Department, who will provide their take on the role of Super Tuesday in today's electoral lanscape:

Jody Neathery-Castro is an associate professor of political science and department chair. She joined UNO in 1999 and has expertise in gender issues in politics and international issues in politics, specifically French politics.

Gregory Petrow is an associate professor of political science and joined UNO in 2005. His areas of expertise are the impact of group identity on political participation, the role of political values in policy preferences and the evaluations of political candidates from non-traditional groups.

Paul Landow is an assistant professor of political science and joined the department in 2009 following decades working at every level of government, including as executive director of a state political party, as an aide to a Member of Congress and as Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Omaha from 2001-08. His research focuses on the relationship between politicians and policy outcomes at the local level.


NOTE: The views below are intended as an academic analysis and not as an endorsement or official position from the UNO or of the University of Nebraska system.

1) People often acknowledge that winning Iowa or New Hampshire doesn’t guarantee a party’s presidential nomination. In what ways is Super Tuesday different?

JNC: Super Tuesday is like the counter-Iowa – it is a bunch of states holding their primaries on the same day, forcing candidates to ‘face the music’ and the rigor of campaigning across all those states.

GP: The person who wins the majority of the delegates in all of the primaries and caucuses is the nominee. Iowa and New Hampshire select only a very small minority of those delegates. As such, it is common for a candidate to win one of those two states but then not win the nomination; however, Super Tuesday involves a lot of elections all on the same day, and so there are many more delegates at stake.

PL: Additionally, Super Tuesday states range from Texas, Arkansas and Alabama to Massachusetts and Vermont, with several in between. There is a broad representation of states and a lot of delegates, making Super Tuesday arguably the most important day of the primary season.

2) Does having so many delegates available on one day unfairly shut out states with later primary or caucus dates, like Nebraska, which holds a Democratic caucus the following Saturday and Republican primary in May?

PL: Late voting states like Nebraska are always at a disadvantage because the contest is pretty well over by the time it rolls around to us. The only fix for that is moving the primary up, but that is a decision that is mostly controlled by the political parties, so not much we, as citizens, can do about it.

JNC: There is nothing inherently unfair about the process, but you could say that states like Nebraska have less impact both because of the timing of the election and because of the relatively small number of delegates to be earned.

GP: The later in the process Nebraska is, the less attention it will receive from the candidates and media. This is less true when the competition for the nomination is very competitive, as it was for the Democrats in 2008. Nebraska starts with a disadvantage because it is a small state, and thus has few delegates.

3) There has been a lot of discussion about the role of Superdelegates. What are they and why do they only apply to the Democratic Party and not the Republican Party?

PL: The political parties control the process, and they make the rules. Super Delegates are represented by party leaders (State Chairs, National Committee Persons, etc...) and Democrats use them as a way of ensuring that party elites have an important role in the selection process.

GP: Other delegates are committed to vote for certain candidates based on election results, but super delegates can make up their own mind. I do not know why one has them but not the other; but it's a choice made by the party leadership.

JNC: I’ve always thought these are a bit weird, myself. They are party officials like governors, senators and representatives, who are meant to be “unpledged” in advance of the convention and are supposed to be a moderating influence on the Democratic Party selection process. Clinton enjoys a lead with those right now, but that could change if Sanders has strong momentum in the early elections. Interestingly, there are campaigns on social media (moveon.org) among Sanders’ supporters to reform the superdelegate selection process and force them to be assigned in a way closer to the popular vote in their states.

4) How has this election year been different than other election years in recent memory?

JNC: This has been the strangest election year that I can remember. Among the Republicans, I’ve never seen a candidate like Donald Trump, who has been simultaneously so bombastic and polarizing, yet electorally popular among the different groups of Republican voters. For the Democrats, you arguably have the best-qualified presidential candidate anyone has seen in recent years, yet she is facing a surprisingly tough race against a self-described Socialist. We have a populist fervor in both parties that is unprecedented in previous elections that I’ve watched.

GP: Political scientists have measures of candidate electability, namely, having a history of previously holding elected office. This is why, in most electoral years, current or previous Governors and U.S. Senators are the highest quality candidates. This year Donald Trump is the likely Republican nominee, and he has never held elected office. Even if he ends up not being the nominee, the fact that he is so competitive is remarkable.
PL: Elections vary because candidates and issues change with each cycle, and this year Donald Trump has dominated the proceedings. But in many ways elections also stay the same, with some issues coming up year after year. One example of both – we have been talking about the Constitution and how to interpret it since George Washington was first elected in 1788 while terrorism and what to do about it is a relatively new conversation in politics.


5) When Super Tuesday is over, what do you think the presidential race will look like for both sides?

PL: It is always difficult to predict election outcomes, but it looks to me like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be in a commanding position after the Super Tuesday vote. And while their nomination will not be guaranteed, they will be the odds on favorites to win.

GP: The current front runners, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will win the plurality or majority of delegates at stake in those elections and thus move closer to becoming their parties' nominees. There will probably still remain some scenario by which Trump could theoretically not win the nomination, but this will be less true for Clinton.

 JNC: Of course Texas is the big prize and Cruz is expected to win it on the GOP side. If he doesn’t, or it is a narrow win, that could signal weakness for his campaign. Trump is running ahead in the GOP in most of the states voting on Super Tuesday, but because none of these are winner-take-all states, we’re still likely to see delegates spread mostly between Trump, Rubio and Cruz.

The Democrats award the delegates on the basis of proportional representation, but Clinton still enjoys the super delegate advantage unless we see a big shift in super delegates away from Clinton and toward Sanders. That would only start to happen if Sanders does unexpectedly well in upcoming states. He really needs to win big in Vermont, Minnesota, Colorado, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Tennessee, in order to start to derail her bid for the nomination. Clinton is polling strong in the southern states, so he is unlikely to make inroads there, but it would be big news if he did.