What became known as ‘Super-Duper Tuesday’ was held on February 5th. Previous to this primary season in election year, the key day was known as ‘Super Tuesday’ and was invariably held in March. The fact that the date moved to February gives an indication of how important some states saw their primaries. ‘Super-Duper Tuesday’ had primaries in 22 states – though some were single party primaries. The most important primaries on ‘Super-Duper Tuesday’ were held in California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Georgia – states that returned more than 100 delegates each.
California: 441 delegates
New York: 281 delegates
Illinois: 185 delegates
New Jersey: 127 delegates
Massachusetts: 121 delegates
Georgia: 103 delegates
Minnesota: 88 delegates
Missouri: 88 delegates
Tennessee: 85 delegates
Colorado: 71 delegates
Arizona: 67 delegates
Alabama: 60 delegates
Connecticut: 60 delegates
Arkansas: 47 delegates
Oklahoma: 47 delegates
Kansas: 41 delegates
New Mexico: 38 delegates
Utah: 29 delegates
Delaware: 23 delegates
Idaho: 23 delegates
North Dakota: 21 delegates
Alaska: 18 delegates
It was generally assumed that at the end of ‘Super-Duper Tuesday’ both parties would have had their presidential nomination. In fact, for the Republicans this was essentially true. John McCain gained far more support than either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee but statistically, both could have caught McCain in terms of delegates. However, by the first week of March both Romney and Huckabee had withdrawn from the Republican competition. The Democrats were left in a position whereby neither Hilary Clinton nor Barack Obama gained a definite advantage over the other in terms of delegate support and their campaigns went the full distance to June 3rd.