Everything you need to know before you caucus on Super Tuesday

Iowa, which votes first in the presidential race, has been criticised for not being representative of the American electorate. On Tuesday, the primary elections will essentially decide which candidates will be moving forward in the presidential race.

Super Tuesday 2016 voting will provide a clearer picture of which candidates of both parties are best positioned to be nominated this summer with so many delegates at stake. Democrats and Republicans in the Centennial State will participate in very different ways Tuesday night.

A still-crowded field of five Republicans and two Democrats remain in the race for the White House as it prepares to pass through Texas on Super Tuesday. Pledged delegates selected by each state are supposed to go on to national conventions and cast a vote for the candidate they support, although, they’re not actually bound to do so.

All Democratic primaries and caucuses use the proportional voting system, and they require a candidate get 15 percent of the vote to qualify for delegates. If he doesn’t fare well on Super Tuesday, his campaigning days may be numbered.

Add it all up and you have Trump at 1,246 delegates – or nine more than he would need to be the party’s official nominee at the party convention in Cleveland in July.

That’s how Donald Trump, with only 32.5 percent of the overall vote there, secured all 50 of South Carolina’s delegates.

Delegates of the Democrat party are also bound to the results of the Minnesota Caucus.

On the Republican side it will be the opportunity for Donald Trump to put himself in an nearly unreachable position with committed delegate support for the convention. Cruz is said to be polling well in Texas, but a win for Cruz in Texas on Super Tuesday doesn’t necessarily mean the other Republican candidates are out since Texas allots delegates proportionally, meaning Cruz will only receive a share of delegates that is proportional to his number of winning votes in Texas. In addition to having the largest number of delegates (55 Republican, 252 Democratic), it is the home state of Senator Ted Cruz.

Super Tuesday is also referred to as the SEC Primary at times.

A voter in the Republican primary will see 13 names on the ballot, including a number of candidates who have pulled out of the race, such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Lindsay Graham and Jeb Bush. Currently, Hillary Clinton has an advantage over Bernie Sanders currently. This eventually turned out to be a Super Tuesday. Marco Rubio could still get the Republican nomination, according to The New York Times. Earlier in the year, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas opted to join Georgia and Tennessee in holding primaries on Super Tuesday. That said, the campaign of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has privately said it is likely to end his run on Super Tuesday. Those same poll results show Hillary Clinton overtaking Bernie Sanders in all but two states.

For more information about Super Tuesday, and for those interested in watching the live coverage, APU’s Political Awareness Club (PAC) and faculty from the Department of History and Political Science will be in the Cougar Dome at 6 p.m. on March 1 to answer questions during the debate.

However, because Super Tuesday is 15 states rolled into a single day, the candidates focus more on national issues and not local and state issues.