In 24 states today, voters will head to the polls or caucuses. More than 2,000 Democratic delegates are up for grabs in 22 states and more than 1,000 Republican delegates are at stake in 21 states.
For both parties, nearly half of the total delegates who will attend the national conventions will be awarded following Tuesday's results - 43 percent of the total Republican delegates and 52 percent of the total delegates for the Democrats.
Rhode Island holds its primary on March 4, the same day as Ohio and Texas.
"It's very difficult to imagine Rhode Island having a significant role on either side" in the race, said Charles Bakst '66, political columnist for the Providence Journal. Rhode Island has about 30 Democratic delegates total, though only 13 delegates are elected in the primary, Bakst said. Texas has an estimated 220 delegates and Ohio has about 116.
There was a movement earlier in the year in Rhode Island's legislature to move the date of the primary up to February, but Gov. Donald Carcieri '65 vetoed the bill, Bakst said. Local communities complained to the governor that they would not have enough time to prepare if the election were moved up, he said.
"Ironically, Massachusetts acted after Rhode Island to move up its primary," Bakst said. Massachusetts' primary is being held today.
This year's "Super Tuesday" - the name given to the day on which the greatest number of primaries and causes are traditionally held - is the largest since the first Super Tuesday in 1988. Super Tuesday was originally a Southern primary and, though significant, it usually did not determine the presidential nominees for either party, according to Associate Professor of Political Science Wendy Schiller.
What is so distinct about this year's Super Tuesday is that it now includes Southern, Western, Midwestern and Northern states, Schiller said, adding that it also comes a month earlier than it did four years ago.
With half the total delegates up for grabs on Tuesday, the importance of the race for both parties' candidates is clear. For the GOP, Super Tuesday is likely to be much more definitive, Schiller said, because the party has a winner-take-all method of awarding delegates in states. "It is possible for Republicans to seal the deal" on Tuesday, Schiller said.
Gabriel Kussin '09, a member of the Brown Democrats, said that the group is very excited for Super Tuesday because "there are two such dynamic candidates in the field," but he doubts that a definitive candidate will emerge.
Nevertheless, Kussin thinks Brown students registered in Rhode Island will have an impact on the presidential nominating contest.
Marc Cooper, senior editor of the blog the Huffington Post and contributing editor of the Nation, wrote in an e-mail that he guesses "the GOP nomination will be effectively taken by McCain on Tuesday."
The nominee for the Democratic Party is unlikely to be crowned Tuesday because the party awards delegates based on a system of proportional representation, said Darrell West, John Hazen White professor of public policy and political science and director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy.
For Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the non-partisan newsletter the Rothenberg Political Report, that means that "even though (Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.) may win a majority of states and delegates, (Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.) will take a large share of voters and delegates as well," he wrote in an e-mail.
Cooper's best guess is that "Clinton will come out slightly on top on Tuesday but that the contest will be open into March in Ohio and Texas," he wrote.
Schiller and West said the races on Super Tuesday would be competitive for both sides. "It's unusual to have such heavily contested presidential elections on both sides," Schiller said. Because of this, she said, political scientists don't have a good idea of what will happen on Tuesday. The races are "totally wide open on both sides, which is rare," she added.
"What we don't know is what voters will be considering when they go to vote on Super Tuesday," Schiller said.
For Democratic candidates, Schiller predicted the race would be very competitive and the results would depend on the turnout of blacks, Latinos and women.
West said that for Obama and Clinton the "white vote" would be very important and could be a determining factor in the race. Obama, he said, received only 23 percent of the white vote in South Carolina, much less than Clinton. "If (Clinton) keeps Obama in the low 30s (in terms of percentage) she's in a strong position," West said.
Obama is expected to do well in Southern states and his home state of Illinois, where there is a high percentage of African Americans registered to vote, West said. Clinton looks strong in her home state of New York, California and several Southwestern states, he said.
Though "it's not sexy or politically correct to talk about the white vote," it matters since white voters comprise the majority of voters in the nation, Gonzales said. He cited change as a key issue and said that "voters are looking for the candidate that best embodies that message."
Former Sen. John Edwards' recent departure from the race has been scrutinized in the media for its possible impact on the Democratic race. Cooper wrote that he believes that Edwards' voters "will be split among Obama and Hillary, with a majority going to Obama. ... The Edwards voters I encountered in Iowa, Nevada, and here in California were voters who wanted change" and therefore were more likely to vote for Obama.
