Super Tuesday: The Election You Didn't Know About

By Wyatt Bair and Jade Pruett

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(For more information on voting access and eligibility, visit the Political Engagement Project’s student voter resources page or Colorado’s Secretary of State Website)

Super Tuesday is tomorrow. No, that’s not the name of some drink special on Main Street.

Colorado, along with 14 other states and territories, will hold primary elections for the major parties’ Presidential nominations. 

Primaries are a direct voting process in which voters cast their ballot to decide which candidate will represent a political party in the general election. These votes will elect delegates, who will then be sent to a party’s convention in August. Colorado voters will have the opportunity to influence how many delegates will be allocated by voting for a candidate.

Unlike many other states, Colorado voters do not have to be affiliated with a political party to participate in the primary election; unaffiliated voters can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary (but can only vote in one!).

So, who’s on the ballot?
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The Democratic Primary:
President Joe Biden is the leading contender for the Democratic nomination, as he has won commanding victories in the South Carolina and Nevada primaries and coalesced support among important party figures. It is atypical for a political party not to support the nomination of a current president. Young and progressive voters have recently taken issue with his foreign policy decisions and age.
Dean Philips is a Representative for Minnesota and the only significant Democratic challenger to Joe Biden’s nomination. However, he has performed poorly in the initial primary contests and has a distant chance of winning any states’ delegates, much less the nomination. 

The Republican Primary:
Former President Donald Trump is the leading contender for the Republican nomination, as he has repeatedly captured double-digit victories in all of the early Republican primary states. While he has largely coalesced his party’s support, legal issues, age, and anti-democratic rhetoric remain a concern among some Republicans. 

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley remains the only significant challenger to Donald Trump’s nomination. Haley has sustained some support among a small portion of the Republican base––both in terms of voters and wealthy donors. 
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Independent & 3rd Party Candidates:
While these candidates will not be competing on either of the primary ballots, they may impact general election results by pulling support away from the major parties’ candidates.

Running on a more progressive platform than Biden, Jill Stein is a former physician turned politician in support of a pro-worker, anti-war, climate action agenda. Stein continues to run as a leading candidate for the Green Party, expected to attract Green Party voters and some progressive democrats. 

Cornel West is another challenger within Biden’s target voting base. A liberal scholar and politician who formerly worked with the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, West runs on a platform of justice and equality. He continues to appeal to young voters, especially on the issue of de-escalation of the Israel-Hamas war.

Robert “Bobby” Kennedy has made headlines this political season for his unrestrained anti-vaccine claims. Running on an independent platform pledging to increase investment domestically and help rebuild the middle class, some who aren’t sold on Trump’s antics but agree with several of his policies may turn to RFK Jr. 

What Role Do Voters Have this Super Tuesday?
Super Tuesday is recognized as one of the most important dates on the American political calendar because of the high number of state primaries occurring on the same day. However, this election may feel anti-climactic, as both of the leading contenders for the Presidential nominations have their eyes set on the general election in November. 

Both races lack a considerable opponent with a base of support large enough to defeat either Trump or Biden in their respective primaries at this moment.

Although it appears that both candidates will coast to their nominations with relatively little resistance from other candidates, voters may play a role in potentially shaping the context of the general election. The option of strategic voting (when voters decide not based on their preferred candidate, but by which option maximizes their influence on election outcomes) has been receiving more attention in recent weeks. 

In Michigan’s primary last week, around 100,000 Democrats voted for “uncommitted” delegates as a form of protest against Joe Biden’s foreign policy decisions in the Israel-Gaza conflict. While this large bloc of voters did not affect the results of Michigan's primary, it could become an issue for Biden in November. Michigan remains a critical swing-state in the presidential election, and the recent margins of victory in past races were thin enough that 100,000 voters could sway an election outcome for a candidate. 

The uncommitted protest vote movement has recently gained traction in Colorado as of last week. A group known as the Colorado Palestine Coalition has urged Democratic and unaffiliated voters to choose the non-committed delegate option in protest of Biden’s support for Israel. Whether this growing movement will affect Joe Biden’s support for Israel is yet to be seen. 

Dr. Linares-Gray, an FLC assistant professor of political science and gender & sexuality studies, said there might be potential for protest votes to affect Joe Biden’s policy positions, or at least how they are framed or contextualized. “If the Democratic Party thinks that protest voting is indicative of a problem they’re going to face in the general election, there is some chance that they will try to push Biden to articulate a policy that’s changed in some way,” she said. 

On the question of whether Biden will change his policy on Gaza because of protest voting in the primary election, Dr. Linares-Gray said, “It’s highly unlikely, especially given the context that people are protesting––but that doesn’t mean protesting isn’t worth it.” In the setting of noncompetitive primary races, protest voters face a more difficult path to pressure policy change. “They have to be signaling a threat in the general election for anyone to be taking them seriously,” Dr. Linares-Gray said. 

Looking at the Republican side, Nikki Haley lost her home state of South Carolina to Donald Trump on February 24th by 20%. Despite her lack of electoral victories in state primaries to date, Haley has maintained that she will stay in the race through Super Tuesday. Haley’s continued presence in the Republican race has forced Donald Trump to divert some money and attention from the general election. 

Another avenue anti-Trump voters have pursued in strategic voting has been supporting Nikki Haley in the Republican Primary. In South Carolina’s primary contests, some Democrats voted for Haley in hopes of hurting Donald Trump’s chances in the general election. Unaffiliated and Republican voters in Colorado will have the opportunity to participate in the Republican primary and cast a strategic vote, but will it have much of an effect looking forward?

Concerned voters checking the box for Haley could be an effective strategy, but it would require a collective effort to have a substantial impact. “Because Colorado is part of the Super Tuesday voting bloc, it would have to be quite a successful large-scale movement to do this, to keep Haley in the race, beyond Super Tuesday,” Dr. Linares-Gray said. 

Young Voters Impact Looking Forward
There is an opportunity for Colorado voters to affect aspects of the general election, but Tuesday’s results will likely finalize Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s races for their respective party nominations. 

Looking beyond Super Tuesday, young voters in Durango, Colorado, and across the country can play a pivotal role in upcoming elections. Gen Z and Millennials are quickly becoming the biggest voting bloc in the United States, and Gen Z voted at a higher rate than previous generations in the 2022 midterm elections. 

Young voters’ strength largely comes from older generations’ tendency to disregard them as significant political actors. “I think sometimes young people forget that they have a lot of power in these kinds of political processes, particularly because people tend to write them off, assume they won’t participate, assume they’re apathetic,” Dr. Linares-Gray said. 

In the approaching La Plata County District Attorney primary in June, and the Senate District 6 and Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District races this fall, FLC students have the potential to defy expectations and swing some elections that were recently decided by less than 600 votes. “Young voters can be a dark horse in political races,” Dr. Linares-Gray said. “When young people vote in large numbers, they can definitely change the outcome of an election.”

Whether that dark horse enters the 2024 political conversation on Tuesday, or farther down the election calendar, remains yet to be seen.