Hey Virginia – it’s #supertuesday2020 Tuesday tomorrow! Here's a quick explainer #VAPolitics #VADems
#Thread 1/11
Tuesday March 3 is "Super" because 14 states, including big guns CA & TX, hold primary elections. (Plus American Samoa has a caucus.) President Trump is going for re-election, so only the Dems are having an election
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Tue…
2/11
Reminder: this is a PRIMARY election, where party voters choose candidate for Nov. general election. More accurately, voters choose DELEGATES to national party convention; these dels are the people who actually vote to select the nominee (A messy process to be sure)
3/11
At stake in VA: 99 delegates, pledged to winning candidates based on complicated math. You need 15% vote statewide to get share of 34 statewide delegates, and then 15% in a particular Congressional district to win district-specific delegates
4/11
So popular vote win does NOT get you all delegates. In fact, possible (tho' unlikely) for statewide "winner" to get less dels than someone else. Don't forget 25 "super-delegates,” elected/party officials who get auto vote at convention & can support any candidate
5/11
Note there are no actual human candidates yet: think of tomorrow's primary as choosing delegate PLEDGES or CONVENTION VOTES for a particular candidate; later the party will choose the actual human who will physically cast that vote at the national convention
6/11
Turnout should be high (for a primary); Blue Wave is still cresting - early absentee voting is high, and Democrats seem pumped to find someone who can beat Trump. Bernie is mobilizing young people, tho' unclear how many will vote (kids in general don't vote well)
7/11
VA is "open primary" state, so anyone can vote. Still, probably won't see many GOP "spoiler" votes - not much evidence this ever happens, plus: be careful what you wish for! (Lesson from 2016: no one knows anything about electability)
8/11
What will happen in VA? Hmm. Probably a narrow Sanders win, with some other candidates dropping out after big losses overall. BUT things are changing - Pete dropping out might help others get over 15% threshold, plus #JoeMentum from Biden's SC win politico.com/news/2020/03/0…
9/11
More here, plus I should be hanging around @8NEWS Tuesday night, either on air or online
rvapol.com/blog/2020/3/2/…
10/11
Dems - don't forget to vote!
11/End
elections.virginia.gov/citizen-portal…
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