What to know about Super Tuesday

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It’s an important new phase of presidential primaries, when the early contests are over and voters from multiple states cast ballots in primaries timed to occur on the same date.

It’s called “Super Tuesday,” and it is important even though neither Democratic President Joe Biden nor former President Donald Trump has had to sweat the competition this year. Primaries on Tuesday may offer the final opportunity for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s quixotic and lackluster effort to challenge Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.

What happens on Super Tuesday?

Instead of a single primary or caucus, Super Tuesday lumps together 15 contests for Republicans and 16 contests for Democrats spread across the country.

More than a third of Republican delegates are at stake along with an equally large portion of Democratic delegates. Biden is undefeated in primary contests this year, and Trump has lost only one.

Which states are having contests?

A large sample of the country will have contests on Super Tuesday – red states and blue states from the North, South, East and West.

The primaries at stake include the first three states in the alphabet, as any schoolkid should be able to tell you: Alabama, Alaska (for Republicans) and Arkansas. In addition, there are California and Colorado; Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota; North Carolina; Oklahoma; Tennessee and Texas; Utah; and Vermont and Virginia.

Tuesday also marks the end of Democrats’ mail-in presidential preference process in Iowa, and a Democratic caucus in American Samoa.

How did Trump and Biden perform in earlier Super