What the Super Tuesday results mean

By Blake Wood, Staff Writer

The Super Tuesday results are out and with that, people will be trying to figure out what those results mean for their favorite candidate.

Let’s start with the Democratic side because it’s pretty simple. For all practical purposes, the race is over. Hillary Clinton will be the democratic nominee, barring something incredibly unlikely and insane. Bernie had a good run and did much better than initially expected, but the math just doesn’t work. He won’t be able to win enough delegates going forward to win the nomination. Your presidential race in November will be Clinton vs the Republican nominee.

Now onto the Republicans. On the surface, it looks like a good night for Trump. He won the most states and that’s good for him, but at this point in the election process, the states are not winner take all. The delegates are given out proportionately and Trump never won a majority in any state. Right now, he’s still the favorite to win the Republican nomination, but after last night, the confidence level in that went down a little bit and the odds of a contested convention went up.

If you don’t know what a contested convention is, I’ll try to sum it up as simply as possible. In order to secure the republican nomination, a candidate needs 1,237 delegates. If no candidate reaches that mark, chaos breaks loose at the convention and they’re free to elect a nominee of their choosing. So, for example, let’s say Trump leads all candidates but fails to reach 1,237 votes. It’s a well-known fact that the Republican establishment does not like Trump. They could come together and broker a deal, making someone like Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, the nominee, despite the fact that he didn’t even run for the position. A contested convention is still an unlikely scenario, but nonetheless, it’s a possibility.

Starting March 15th, the remaining states are predominantly winner take all, or winner take most. If Trump wins Ohio, Florida or North Carolina, it would be a huge, if not devastating blow, to the chances of the other candidates. If you’re following this election, March 15th is an important date.

Tuesday essentially ended the Democratic race, but the Republican race still isn’t decided, despite what some are saying. A Clinton-Trump match-up is still the most likely, but it’s far from inevitable.