Super Tuesday: Everything you need to know

THE anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party is lashing out, desperate to halt his progress ahead of the presidential campaign’s most important day.

THE anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party is lashing out like never before, desperate to halt his progress ahead of tomorrow’s pivotal primaries.

Thirteen states will vote for their preferred Republican nominee on Super Tuesday (Wednesday morning our time), and Donald Trump is expected to win almost all of them. That’s a prospect many of the party’s supporters simply can’t stomach. Overnight, they pleaded for sanity.

“There was a time when I was more amused than appalled by Trump,” David French wrote in the conservative magazine National Review.

“Those days are long past. The crucible of the campaign has revealed him to be petty, malicious and vindictive. He isn’t as bad as his critics feared — he’s worse.

“The most disturbing thing isn’t that Trump exists — cruel and ambitious charlatans will always be among us — it’s that millions of Americans are embracing him because of his cruelty, because of his malice.”

Former US senator Tom Coburn, who’s an influential figure in the party, called Trump’s campaign “a fabrication”.

“He is perpetuating a fraud on the American people,” Coburn said in a statement endorsing Trump’s nearest rival, Marco Rubio. “Trump simply lacks the character, skills and policy knowledge to turn his grandiose promises into reality.”

Several other Republicans shredded Trump over his refusal to condemn the Ku Klux Klan during an interview with CNN on Sunday (Trump has since blamed his behaviour on a “very bad earpiece”).

“A disqualifying and disgusting response by Donald Trump to the KKK. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America,” tweeted the party’s 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney.

A disqualifying & disgusting response by @realDonaldTrump to the KKK. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 29, 2016

“Trump has gone, in recent days, into full fascist mode,” added Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin.

But the most savage criticism came from Romney’s former chief strategist, Stuart Stevens.

“This is more than utterly disgusting. It really makes it impossible to pretend that Trump is not only an idiot but also a racist idiot,” Stevens wrote for The Daily Beast.

“He’s proven he’s a uniquely ugly figure,” he said. “There is something at stake here larger than one election. To support Trump is to support the hate and racism he embodies. That is simply an intolerable moral position.”

OK this one’s definitely a smile.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

Those scathing comments come with more than a whiff of desperation, and for good reason. While polling has been patchy, Trump does appear to be the favourite in most Super Tuesday states, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz just ahead in the crucial battleground of Texas.

Without a miraculous surge from either Cruz or Rubio, Trump will sweep through America’s south tomorrow, racking up a near-insurmountable lead in the race for the Republican nomination.

It’s a complicated process. Every state has a certain number of “delegates”, who are assigned to each candidate based on his share of the vote. To become the nominee, one candidate eventually needs to win 1237 of these delegates. There are almost 600 at stake on Super Tuesday.

Two of the states — Colorado and Wyoming — vote but don’t award their delegates tomorrow.

Most of the states in question are in the south, which means they have high concentrations of evangelical voters. Those demographics were supposed to favour Cruz, who made Super Tuesday a focus of his campaign from the start, but Trump’s unexpected dominance has ripped that strategy to shreds.

Here’s how things look in each state.

Texas, 155 delegates

There are two types of polls in Texas at the moment: some that give Cruz a comfortable double-digit lead, and others that show him tied with Trump. If Cruz can’t manage an easy win in his home state, there will be pressure on him to drop out of the presidential race.

Georgia, 76 delegates

Trump is polling in the mid-30s in Georgia, with Cruz and Rubio both hovering around 20 per cent. But the state has large urban areas, which could favour Rubio strongly enough to propel him to a clear second place.

“Marcomentum” has yet to materialise after Rubio’s strong debate performance last week.

Tennessee, 58 delegates

There hasn’t been much polling in Tennessee, but the limited information we have suggests Trump could break the 40 per cent barrier there. Expect an easy win.

Alabama, 50 delegates

Rubio and Cruz are both stuck in the teens in Alabama, and that should make it one of Trump’s best states.

Virginia, 49 delegates

Virginia includes the outer suburbs of Washington DC, and has a higher-than-average proportion of well-educated voters. That’s good news for Rubio, and bad news for Trump — though the Republican frontrunner does still boast a significant lead in the polls.

Oklahoma, 43 delegates

In general elections, Oklahoma is extremely predictable (it always votes Republican), but in the primaries it’s notoriously competitive. The three major candidates could finish within just a few percentage points of each other.

Cruz will hope to surge past Trump in several southern states.

Massachusetts, 42 delegates

Trump is utterly dominant in Massachusetts. Utterly. Dominant.

Arkansas, 40 delegates

There has only been one poll in Arkansas this year, so nobody has any real idea what will happen. For what it’s worth, that poll showed Cruz in first place, with Trump and Rubio tied close behind him.

Minnesota, 28 delegates

This state also suffers from a startling lack of data, but the most recent poll showed Rubio leading a very tight contest. Jeb Bush was still in the race back then, soaking up seven per cent of the vote, so Rubio will hope the governor’s supporters have flocked to him.

Alaska, 28 delegates

Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has endorsed Trump, which could be crucial in her home state. Cruz has an outside chance.

Vermont, 16 delegates

Vermont, in the far northeast of the United States, is similar to New Hampshire, where John Kasich performed well last month. He’ll be hoping to come second here as well.

Colorado and Wyoming, 0 delegates

The convoluted rules in these states mean that while they’re part of Super Tuesday, they won’t actually award any delegates. In other words, they’re not worth worrying about.

That’s Kasich on the right. Yeah, we don’t really remember him either.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER SUPER TUESDAY?

Trump should emerge from Super Tuesday with plenty of momentum, but he can’t win the nomination tomorrow. As the New York Times has pointed out, Rubio could lose every state and still have a “real chance” of overtaking Trump later.

Having said that, the moment of truth is approaching fast. The key date is March 15, when Rubio’s home state of Florida joins several others in staging pivotal, winner-take-all contests. If Trump can defeat the local boy in his own state, claiming all 99 of its delegates in the process, the rest of the primaries will become little more than a formality.

With so much at stake, the two weeks between Super Tuesday and the Florida primary will be brutal, as Trump’s detractors desperately try to tear him down.

Rubio himself has been savaging Trump non-stop since the Republican debate last week, trading increasingly juvenile insults with the real estate mogul in an attempt to get under his skin.

“We have a con artist as the frontrunner in the Republican Party. A guy who has made a career out of telling people lies so they’ll come in and buy his product,” Rubio told a rally of loyal supporters recently.

“If you nominate me, you will have a conservative who unites the Republican Party and brings us together after this circus act we’ve had to live with for nine months.”

That’s just a taste of what’s to come — particularly at the next debate, due to take place on Friday our time.

The smiling assassin.

DON’T FORGET THE DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will also clash on Super Tuesday, though hardly anyone is paying attention.

Coming off her resounding victory in South Carolina, Clinton is expected to romp through the south even more convincingly than Trump.

Sanders is much stronger in the less racially diverse northeast, where he’ll win his home state, Vermont, and challenge Clinton in nearby Massachusetts. But that almost certainly won’t be enough to revive his struggling campaign.

The Democrats have a slightly different map for Super Tuesday.