Super Tuesday Predictions

Super Tuesday Predictions - Super Tuesday is fast approaching. So what does this day, being called "Super Duper Tuesday" this year for its major importance, have in store for us? Will Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama be the democratic front-runner and will John McCain, Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney be in front on the republican side?

This year, Super Tuesday holds more importance than it ever has and that is because of the shear number of states that have moved their primaries up to February 5^th, 2008. One year ago at about this time, February 2008, only eight states had scheduled their primaries for this day. Those states were Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico Democrats, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia Republicans.

Since then, 16 other states have chosen to have their primaries on this date making it a grand total of 24 states that will be having their primaries on February 5^th. The states that have moved their primaries to this day are, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho Democrats, Illinois, Kansas Democrats, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana Republicans, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee. This is the largest number of states to have their primaries on a single day in history.

With all of these states having primary contests, what impact will there be on Super Duper Tuesday?

Republicans

Mitt Romney should do well in the western part of the country. He has polled their well and he has already won two contests in this region, Nevada and Wyoming. Huckabee should do well in the bible belt because of his appeal as a former pastor and John McCain will probably do well in metropolitan areas. The last of the major republican candidates in Rudy Guiliani, and he will probably struggle on this day, but should do fairly well in the northeastern part of the country. I see the states falling this way.

Montana, Colorado, Alaska and Utah will go to Mitt Romney pretty easily. He is popular in this area and has polled well. He will obviously win Utah handily because of his mormon faith, which makes up the majority of the state.

Mike Huckabee will do well in Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Kansas. He is very popular in these areas and, as the former governor of Arkansas, is known throughout the Southeast.

McCain will do well in his native Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Illinois and Delaware. McCain should easily win Arizona, as he has already been an elected senator from there for many terms, and he should do well in Massachusetts, where he won the primary in 2000.

Finally, Rudy Guiliani will do well in the Northeast, except for Massachusetts. He should be able to win New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, but he will struggle to have any impact anywhere else.

The tossup states look to be Missouri, Minnesota, West Virginia, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma and a few others.

Super Duper Tuesday is shaping up to be a good day for Mitt Romney. While he does not poll well everywhere in the country, some of the states that he looks the best in, like Utah, will be having primaries that day. He has a real chance to end the day with more states won than any other candidate, but I think McCain will end the day with the most delegates. If McCain wins Florida, he will be tough to catch after Super Duper Tuesday.

Democrats

Barack Obama scored a huge victory in South Carolina and he will probably have some pretty good momentum heading up to Tuesday. Hillary Clinton now has to play catch up and John Edwards is all but out of the race.

Barack Obama should do well in Illinois and the surrounding states and he also has a chance to do very well in the Southeast after the South Carolina result, but most of the states are much more of a tossup than on the republican side.

Clinton should do well in the northeast, except for Massachusetts, which is leaning towards Obama, and the West. She is the front-runner in California and she should do well in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. I also see her doing well in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

John Edwards will not win a single state and he will probably drop out of the race shortly after February 5^th as he will have no chance to become the democratic presidential nominee.

February 5^th is looking to be a real close race between Clinton and Obama and I see it as too close to call at this point. I see Obama having a chance to pull out more states, but with the states that Clinton has a chance to win, I see her pulling out more delegates, which is what it is all about.

Clinton and McCain have a great chance to be the front-runners in their respective races after Tuesday.