Okay, pencils down, everyone. Time's up to try to manipulate your friends in Super Tuesday states to vote for your favorite candidate. Now it's up to them, the residents of states like Alabama, Georgia, and Texas to determine the future of the race. The country's in good hands!
As the polls close this evening, I'll be liveslogging the topline results, and hopefully mocking whatever dumb things the candidates have to say today. Better prepare yourself now for some bad news: On the Republican side, it's going to be Trump by a landslide, what fun. (With the exception of Texas, which will go to animated children's film villain Ted Cruz.)
On the Democratic side, today's states will mostly go to Hillary. She's already way out ahead, with 546 delegates to Bernie's 87. Almost all of Hillary's lead is comprised of Superdelegates — those are the appointed party officials whose choice of candidate counts far more than regular voters — and even though they can change their vote at any time, it's kind of hard to see them doing so if Bernie loses most of the states today.
But let's say it doesn't quite go that way for Hillary, and she and Bernie finish roughly even. (Some states are winner-take-all, others are winner-take-some, so even if you win a state you don't necessarily get to win that state.) That would make things a little awkward for Hillary, since it'll look to a lot of people like she's stolen the election. If she and Bernie remain tied when it comes to elections, her coronation would make an awful lot of people grumpy about the whole darn process.
So when's Washington State's turn to weigh in? Well, it depends on your party. You missed the Republican caucuses — they were back on February 20 — but don't worry, Republicans, the caucus in our state doesn't actually count for picking nominees. They only picked delegates, and those delegates aren't bound to any particular candidate until the primary on May 24.
Washington Democrats, you'll get to caucus on March 26, and for you the caucuses matter very much, since that's where you'll choose the candidates that your delegates nominate. You'll also be able to vote in the primaries in May, but your vote in the primary will not actually count for anything official. It's what's informally called a "beauty contest," and is basically just a non-binding survey. For you, the biggest impact that voting in that primary will have is to let both parties know that you are an active voter and should continue receiving junk mail and annoying phone calls.
Until then, if you want to have an impact on the race in Washington, you basically have three options: you can donate a couple hundred thousand dollars to your candidate of choice; you can commit voter fraud and try to vote thousands of times in various states; or you can volunteer as much time as possible for one of the campaigns. That last option is probably the most achievable for most folks, but I won't blame you if it also sounds like the least fun.
(For what it's worth, state Republicans wanted to move the primary date up to early March so Washington could be a little more relevant, but Democrats blocked the move.)
And of course, you can also vote when the time finally comes. But as the saying goes, if you don't donate all of your money and time and risk federal imprisonment, you have no right to complain.
