Super Tuesday: What you should know ahead of the upcoming U.S. primaries

More than one-third of the total delegates available in both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries will be awarded on Super Tuesday, when 16 states and one U.S. territory hold presidential nominating contests.

On the Republican side, 854 of 2,429 will be at stake on Super Tuesday, which is traditionally the biggest day on the presidential primary calendar when it comes to the number of states holding presidential primaries and caucuses, as well as the number of delegates in play. Democrats will award 1,420 delegates, also more than one-third of those at stake in all. Nobody will lock up the nomination on Super Tuesday, but each party’s frontrunner can get pretty close.

Former President Donald Trump, who has won every presidential contest in which he’s appeared on the ballot — except for the District of Columbia — and earned 122 delegates, needs 971 more to hit his “magic number” of 1,215. Once he receives that many, he’ll have won a majority of available delegates to the Republican convention this summer and will be considered the party’s presumptive nominee.

The earliest Trump can hit that number is March 12. Trump currently has 244 delegates after additional wins over the weekend in Michigan, Missouri and Idaho. Though former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, the last major candidate on the Republican side, won all 19 delegates in the District of Columbia’s primary, Trump could clinch the nomination by winning about 90% of the remaining delegates at stake from now through March 12.

Republican delegate rules vary by state, but their system generally makes it easier for frontrunners to quickly rack up large numbers of delegates because many states — including Super Tuesday’s biggest prize, California — award all