CLEVELAND — On Super Tuesday this year, 16 states and one U.S. territory are holding their presidential nominating contests, so we’re VERIFYING the answer to this question.
THE QUESTION
"Will we know who the 2024 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates will be today?"
THE SOURCES
To answer this, we consulted the following:
- The Associated Press' Election 2024 Delegate Tracker
- Ballotpedia
THE RESEARCH
First, let's explain how the delegate system works. Ballotpedia explains that delegates are the people who cast votes to determine who our presidential candidates will be. Who those delegates vote for is determined by how candidates perform in each state's nominating contests, i.e. in their primary election or caucus.
As of the morning of Super Tuesday on March 5, the Associated Press' Election 2024 Delegate Tracker lists former President Donald Trump as the Republican frontrunner over former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, having earned 273 to her 43 delegate votes, to date.
In order for Trump to become the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, he needs to secure a total of 1,215 delegate votes, according to Ballotpedia's breakdown of the 2024 Republican Party delegate rules. If Trump were to win every contest on Super Tuesday, he would win all 865 delegates up for grabs today, but he'd still officially be 77 short of the 1,215 delegate votes need to clinch the Republican nomination.
On the Democratic side, the AP's Delegate Tracker shows incumbent President Joe Biden has a substantial lead over his competitors, Minnesota U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. To date, he's earned 206 of the 208 possible delegate votes that have been available so far.
For Democrats, Ballotpedia lists the magic number to get on the November general election presidential ballot as 1,968 delegate votes. Today on Super Tuesday, there are 1,420 votes that will be decided, so adding what's possible with what Biden has already won still leaves him 342 short of enough to formally declare the Democratic slot on November's ballot as his own.
THE ANSWER
So we can VERIFY that we will not truly know who the 2024 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates will be today.
ADDITIONAL CONTEXT
There aren't enough delegate votes available yet for anyone to be awarded the majority they need to clinch their respective party's nomination. For Republicans, enough delegate votes will have been possible to earn at the end of March 12. For Democrats, it’s March 19, which happens to be Ohio's primary election day.