With the primaries in full swing, it might be time for a little refresher of how far the race has come and where the candidates stand thus far. Scrolling through Facebook for a comprehensive and accurate update might not get you the information you need. In order to keep the voters of Seattle University informed, I’ve summarized important details about the election.
Republican Candidates
At the beginning of the primary race, there were 16 candidates, all of whom were vying for the presidential nominee of the Republican party. We are only a couple months in, but there are now only five candidates: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and John Kasich. However, this Republican race has mostly been dominated by the outspoken Donald Trump. He has won three out of the four primaries thus far and has not struggled to win. Currently, Trump has 82 delegates and he needs 1237 to win the Republican nomination.
Cruz and Rubio are very close, with Rubio only trailing behind Cruz (17) by one delegate. Trump, who seems unstoppable, leads the Republican party while Rubio and Cruz split the remainder of the Republican vote. If one of them were to drop out of the election, the other might stand a better chance against Trump.
Democrat Candidates
The Democratic race started off with five candidates. With all of the attention on the Senator from Vermont and the Secretary of state, none of the other candidates got any recognition and dropped out. However, the battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton has been close before it ever started in Iowa. They kicked off the campaign by ending Iowa in a virtual tie, even though Clinton technically won by .3%. Later, Sanders wins New Hampshire and Clinton wins Nevada (barely). They have been playing a game of tug of war since the start of the election and hopefully we won’t have to wait until the very end of the primaries to see who comes out on top. With the South Carolina primary being held Saturday, we shall see if Sanders can pull ahead of Clinton, or if Clinton will capitalize on her lead in Nevada to pull ahead in the overall race.
Some would argue that Iowa and New Hampshire are not the best places to start the primary simply because they are some of the least diverse states in the country. Nevada and South Carolina are definitely more accurate representations of the greater population. Nevada has a very large Latino population while South Carolina has a large black population. Clinton and Sanders have been fighting for the Latino and the black vote since New Hampshire. However, Sanders won the Latino voters in Nevada, and the media predicts that Clinton will win voters in South Carolina.
Tuesday, March 1 is Super Tuesday, the day that 16 states will be holding their states primary elections. This will give America a clearer picture as to how part of the nation feels towards some candidates and how critical some states will be in the future.
As always, we would like to remind students to register to vote, to check their state’s election day, and vote! If you are out of state for any reason, you can always get an absente ballot sent to you.
Further, the importance of Millennials voting has come to the public’s attention through media outlets. NPR has written an article that Millennials could help swing the vote in 10 states! But that’s not the only shocking thing about this article: according to a recent census, Millennials out-number baby boomers, with our population being estimated at over 83 million. It is critical that the younger generation actually goes out and votes in this election because Millennials will be directly influenced by the politician’s decisions. With that kind of impact riding on the presidential candidate, voters have the ability to put their values ahead of the baby boomers’ values.
For a further look into the presidential candidates, come back to our website as the election continues and follow us on Facebook!