Road to Super Tuesday: The US Presidential Primaries have so far been a tale of outsiders rocking the establishment

Texas, with the most delegates, will be the key battleground come Super Tuesday. Photograph: Texas State Capitol in Austin from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Tuesday 1st of March marks a key moment in the long and winding US Presidential election. So-called Super Tuesday will see more than ten states, including key state Texas, declare their choices for Democratic and Republican candidates for the Presidency (Weiland, 2016).

Going into Super Tuesday, the primaries for both parties are much closer than previously predicted. The tight races are largely thanks to their being contested by the outsider candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who are upsetting prior expectations and putting the old two-party system to the sword.

The 2016 US Presidential race was supposed to be a straight race between two clear favourites - one from each party. From amongst the Democrats there was Hillary Clinton, while from the Republicans there was Jeb Bush.

Hillary was a former First Lady, as wife of Bill, and in her own right Secretary of State and a long time Senator. Jeb is the son of one President and the Brother of another, with executive experience as Governor of Florida. The rest appeared to be a formality.

Contrary to first impressions, however, the supporters of neither party where in the mood for a coronation. There were, from the first, insurgent candidacies, but they were paid little heed and given long odds.

Commentary watching the Republican nomination race, in particular, found something between fascination and amusement in how long the list of candidates for the GOP nomination was becoming (Gabbatt, 2015). Where analysis fell on the respective lists in depth, some where given more credibility than others.

Early runner Scott Walker was one such candidate. The Governor of Wisconsin has a controversial record that has proven popular with fiscal conservatives in the GOP (Pilkington & Sullivan, 2015) - including spending cuts and confrontations with unions.

Walker's run for the Republican Party nomination certainly made a lot of sense. As one part of a Wisconsin trio, along with GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan and GOP Party Chairman Reince Priebus, that are trying to set the agenda for the modern Republican Party (Balz, 2011; Healy & Martin; 2015).

The Democrat's version was Martin O'Malley - who was famously the inspiration for the Baltimore-based TV show The Wire. O'Malley entered as the third runner alongside, and 'moderate' alternative to, democratic socialist Sanders and the scandal mired Clinton, clearly hoping to be seen as someone more acceptable to a broader middle ground of voters (Tabor, 2015).

However, all bets were upset by Trump and Sanders.

There is little to be said about Donald Trump from a progressive view, other than to note the apparent popularity of his brand of being offensive to people from almost every demographic group.

Bernie Sanders started the Democratic race with isolated support in only a few Northeastern states and lay nearly 60 points behind Clinton (Daily Kos, 2015). Yet by the Nevada caucus the Vermont Senator was just 5 points adrift (Lewis et al, 2016).

Yet both outside runners still face barriers beyond the Democratic-Republican establishment itself.

Trump's divisive message has kept him stuck in the mid 30s in the percentage polls - although in Nevada on Saturday he did break the 40% barrier (The Guardian, 2016). Meanwhile the more 'mainstream' candidates have together pulled in over 50% over numerous polls.

Coming from almost the opposite direction, Sanders has struggled to get his message out beyond his core of young and working class voters. South Carolina showed this with abundant clarity as Hillary Clinton won 74% of the vote and overwhelmingly with voters who were not white (Walsh, 2016). Clinton, backed overwhelming by the party elite, has campaigned smartly and is so far holding back the rising popular tide.

Regardless of the barriers in their way, the outsiders have none-the-less shaken up the establishment.

This is demonstrated most clearly in the Republican race where mainstream favourite Jeb Bush's campaign ended in complete failure in South Carolina (BBC, 2016), when he dropped out with little to show for millions in fundraising. Marco Rubio, the next to be annointed by the GOP mainstream, inherits a deficit to Trump that it will take huge momentum to overhaul (Stokols & Palmer, 2016).

Super Tuesday will give the first major indications of whether the insurgent candidacies will have the momentum to topple their respective party establishments. Even if the party elite see off the challengers, there doesn't seem to be a positive outcome likely for them.

At best for the Democratic-Republican establishment, it will likely see off a strong opposition run only to be fatally undermined. As seen elsewhere, like in France, the mainstream will limp on hounded by outside forces that sense weakness and opportunity. At worst, the two-party system that has governed the US will not have been broken apart, but rather hacked and hijacked.

References

Noah Weiland's 'Everything you need to know about Super Tuesday'; on Politico; 26 February 2016.

Adam Gabbatt's 'So, 16 Republican candidates walk into a presidential nomination contest... Expecting a punchline? We don’t have one – but we do have a list of 16 things you could do with those striving to be the 2016 Republican presidential nominee'; in The Guardian; 21 July 2015.

Ed Pilkington & Zoe Sullivan's 'Scott Walker: a candidate who embodies America's current partisan divisiveness - Where some see the allure of a rightwinger winning elections in a blue state, others see ‘a natural ceiling’ to Walker’s support base due to his narrow approach'; in The Guardian; 14 July 2015.

Dan Balz's 'A young Wisconsin trio could shape the direction of the GOP'; in The Washington Post; 5 February 2011.

Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin's 'Wisconsin, Politics and Faith Bind Scott Walker and Paul Ryan'; in The New York Times; 5 May 2015.

Nick Tabor's 'The Mayor Who Cracked Down on Baltimore: Martin O’Malley is no left alternative to Hillary Clinton — he’s a “tough-on-crime” liberal'; in Jacobin Magazine; 14 May 2015.

'New PPP national poll: Hillary Clinton extends lead over Democratic opponents'; on the Daily Kos; 16 June 2015.

Paul Lewis, Chris McGreal, Maria L La Ganga & Sam Levin's 'Clinton regains momentum after win over Sanders in Nevada: As Democratic race heads to South Carolina, Clinton says ‘the fight is on’, and Sanders strikes an upbeat tone in concession speech'; in The Guardian; 20 February 2016.

'Nevada Republican caucuses: track the votes live, county by county'; in The Guardian; 23 February 2016.

'US election 2016: Jeb Bush drops out of Republican race'; on the BBC; 21 February 2016.

Eli Stokols & Anna Palmer's 'Rubio's suburban play for second place: The senator doesn’t have to win outright on Super Tuesday to stay in the game'; in Politico; 29 February 2016.