John Carroll University Carroll Collected 2020 Faculty Bibliography Faculty Bibliographies Community Homepage 2020 Clearing the Field: How do Presidential Primary Candidates Win Big on Super Tuesday? Colin D. Swearingen Follow this and additional works at: https://collected.jcu.edu/fac_bib_2020 Part of the American Politics Commons American Review of Politics Volume 37 No. 2 Clearing the Field: How do Presidential Primary Candidates Win Big on Super Tuesday? C. Douglas Swearingen John Carroll University
[email protected] Abstract In presidential primaries, Super Tuesday elections play a significant role in winnowing candidate fields and establishing nomination frontrunners. Despite their importance, scholars know little about why and how candidates win or lose the states comprising these events. This study explores which factors help explain candidate performance in Super Tuesday primaries between 2008 and 2016. Using pooled cross- sectional time-series analysis, the results indicate three key drivers of Super Tuesday success: candidate viability, public attention, and media attention. These findings imply that while there are similarities between Super Tuesdays and the broader explanations of presidential primary results, there are opportunities for upstart candidates to improve their performance vis-à-vis frontrunners, particularly since winning prior primaries or caucuses are not a uniquely significant predictor in our models. Future research should explore the interrelatedness of these three critical factors as well as how campaigns strategically attempt to influence Super Tuesday voters. Keywords Campaigns, elections, presidential primaries, public attention, Google Trends, media attention, polling, fundraising, endorsements Introduction On February 5, 2008, 23 states participated in a Democratic Party presidential primary or caucus pitting Barack Obama against Hillary Clinton.