Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Super Duper Tuesday Lives Up To Its Name

Now be honest. Wasn’t Tuesday evening one of the most exciting nights ever in American politics? It had more drama and twists than many presidential general elections. The onrush of results and exit polls in twenty-four states–and let’s not forget about American Samoa–was dizzying and exhilarating.

Our readers, mainly political junkies, already know the basics. To refresh your memory, in case you are in the same kind of sleepless fog and hoarse stupor that we are, please see the two accompanying maps, one for the Democrats and one for the Republicans, showing which candidates won which states. The number appearing within the boundaries of each Super Tuesday state is the percentage of the vote for the winning candidate. In a future essay, once a little time has passed, we will return to the events of this remarkable day to evaluate further the nation’s first truly national primary. True, in 1988 the first Super Tuesday included twenty states, but fourteen of them were in the South and Border-South region. By comparison, 2008’s Super Duper Tuesday had a selection of states from every region.