The 2020 Election: Part 2 - Super Tuesday and Beyond

Civics Learning Project already has available multiple units of curriculum for teaching the 2020 Election and about voter issues. Check it out and look for updates as we add more content.

This is Part 2 of an Election 2020 Series of Current Event Resources

On March 3, 2020, 16 states voted in what is known as Super Tuesday. The day before those primaries, three of the Democratic candidates dropped out of the race: Tom Steyer, Peter Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. Since Super Tuesday, two more candidates have dropped out: Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren. The two candidates left in the race for the Democratic Nomination are Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. On the Republican side, many states have canceled primaries because President Trump is running as an incumbent. No republican challenges won any primaries on Super Tuesday, but all states did have other offices where both political parties have candidates vying for positions such as senators, representatives, and state legislators.

By winning primaries, a candidate collects a percentage of delegates to the Democratic party’s convention in July. As of the publication of this Current Event, Joe Biden is only slightly ahead in the delegate count from Bernie Sanders. You can simply search “2020 Delegate Count” in Google and you will get up to the minute counts!

There are several more multiple-state primary days in March:

March 10: Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Washington

March 17: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Ohio

March 24: Georgia

March 29: Puerto Rico

Besides following who is ahead or who is winning/losing, there are other issues to consider when looking into the primary process: do voters have easy access to the polls? Do states have clear reporting on their voting, and do they have ways to recount the ballots if needed? Are people actually turning out to vote? What ages and other demographics are most represented at the voting polls in 2020?

2020 Presidential Primary Calendar

Essential Questions:

What do you think are the most common reasons candidates drop out of the race?
How has this primary season surprised you so far?
Based on Super Tuesday, do you have any predictions for the states who will be voting during the rest of March 2020? What do you base your predictions on?
How do you think voter access or voter suppression is affecting the primary process?
Which of the remaining candidates (in either party) appeals to you most and why?